(Left) Daríana Perdigón, initially from Venezuela, and her new child Dariangelys and (Proper) Magdala Ciceron along with her little one Amaya, pose for portraits within the maternity care unit on the Roosevelt Lodge.

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(Left) Daríana Perdigón, initially from Venezuela, and her new child Dariangelys and (Proper) Magdala Ciceron along with her little one Amaya, pose for portraits within the maternity care unit on the Roosevelt Lodge.

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When Roukhaya discovered that she was pregnant, she was nonetheless dwelling within the African nation of Chad.

When she discovered it was a woman, that is when she says she knew it was time to depart.

In Chad, she explains, feminine genital mutilation continues to be practiced. Roukhaya and her husband are each medical doctors, they usually suppose it’s brutal. I ask if she herself was subjected to it. She nods quietly.

“I do not need that for my daughter,” she says.

(NPR doesn’t establish survivors of sexual violence, so we’re withholding Roukhaya’s final title.)

Within the final yr or so, over 100,000 migrants from all around the world have come to New York Metropolis. Some, like Roukhaya, are pregnant, and looking for shelter. NPR frolicked with a number of of those ladies, their infants, and the workforce of medical doctors, nurses and social staff who help them.

Individuals sit in the principle foyer, ready to undergo the medical and administrative arrival course of within the Roosevelt Lodge, which has been transformed into the principle processing heart for migrants arriving in New York Metropolis.

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Individuals sit in the principle foyer, ready to undergo the medical and administrative arrival course of within the Roosevelt Lodge, which has been transformed into the principle processing heart for migrants arriving in New York Metropolis.

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Estefani (final title withheld), from Venezuela, holds her daughter’s footwear whereas on the maternity care unit of the Roosevelt Lodge.

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Estefani (final title withheld), from Venezuela, holds her daughter’s footwear whereas on the maternity care unit of the Roosevelt Lodge.

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Roukhaya’s first cease was on the Roosevelt Lodge in Manhattan. It is the town’s Arrival Heart — the entry level to New York for all migrants to be registered and entry shelters and authorized and medical companies.

The resort retains an air of Twenties opulence: large work, glittering chandeliers and sprawling stairways. However lately, it serves as a kind of modern-day Ellis Island. The nationwide guard watches over whereas hundreds of migrants wait to obtain medical evaluations and immunizations.

Roukhaya was despatched to The Girls’s Well being Medical Heart at Bellevue Hospital, a part of New York’s Well being + Hospitals, which is the town’s public well being system. That is the place most migrant ladies are seen for OB-GYN care.

Workers there advised NPR that one of many largest considerations is the dearth of prenatal care in among the new arrivals. That is a priority that some sufferers share too.

(Left) Yuniaski López, from Venezuela, poses for a portrait within the maternity care unit on the Roosevelt Lodge. (Proper) Balloons are caught on the ceiling on the resort.

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“It frightened me,” says Yuniaski López. She apologizes for her voice sounding a bit hoarse and explains that she’s simply exhausted. López is in her mid-20s. She jokes that again residence in Venezuela, her mother-in-law was at all times insisting on a grandchild. She and her husband would inform López that it was not an excellent time to have a toddler, between the nation’s dire financial disaster and authorities repression.

López says the journey to the U.S. was practically unattainable. “It was so tough,” she says. “Particularly the jungle. All of it. The practice … it was too tough. I might hardly bear it. I slept within the streets. I typically did not have sufficient to eat.”

So it scared her when she arrived within the U.S. and discovered she’d been pregnant the complete time.

Workers at Bellevue say they’re keenly conscious that the journey to the U.S. is very harrowing for ladies.

Individuals strolling within the foyer of Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

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Individuals strolling within the foyer of Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

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Dr. Natalie Davis sits in her workplace at Bellevue Hospital.

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Dr. Natalie Davis sits in her workplace at Bellevue Hospital.

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In one of many rooms on the Roosevelt Lodge, a girl named Estefani is jovial and talkative. Besides when she will get to this a part of her story. She stares down at her fingers and says: “They bought me on my method up.”

Estefani and her husband are additionally from Venezuela. She’s a nurse, however it was laborious to make ends meet with a brand new child. She says that in Venezuela, you probably have a child, it’s a must to select: Are you going to present them lunch? Or dinner? It most likely cannot be each.

She was driving the practice via Mexico when she was assaulted. Her pal bought harm badly. She says she does not thoughts speaking about it, however she does not have far more to say. “I do not take into consideration the journey. Or what occurred there. I deal with my daughter.”

Many sexual assaults occur additional south, within the harmful jungle straddling Colombia and Panama referred to as the Darién Hole. Based on Medical doctors With out Borders, sexual assaults on migrant ladies and ladies crossing the realm are prevalent.

“I’ve met mothers who’re pregnant on account of a rape that they’ve skilled throughout their migration, which is simply so tough,” says Dr. Natalie Davis, affiliate medical director of ambulatory ladies’s well being companies at Bellevue. “They’re carrying a child that may be a product of a trauma they’d alongside the way in which.”

Michele Maron-Knobel is part of the workforce of physicians and social staff who’re offering assist and sources for migrant ladies who’ve lately arrived to New York throughout their pregnancies, in addition to postpartum care. (Proper) A migrant mom holds her daughter’s hand as she feels her pregnant abdomen.

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When a affected person mentions assault, Well being + Hospitals says they’re supplied with emotional assist as wanted. “First, simply giving them the house to speak about it, I feel that is key,” says Michele Maron-Knobel, the social work supervisor for Bellevue’s Girls’s Well being Clinic. For all sufferers who’re lower than 24 weeks pregnant, there is a dialogue about whether or not the being pregnant is desired. “We even have an in-house victims companies program, the Program for Survivors of Torture,” says Maron-Knobel. “Proper now they’ve an intensive ready checklist, which is irritating.”

Even for sufferers who have not skilled this stage of trauma, it is an all-hands-on-deck state of affairs simply to get the fundamentals lined. All through New York Metropolis, mutual assist teams have been important in helping moms with meals, clothes, toys, first assist and diapers.

Bellevue refers households to companies that present assist for first-time mothers, being pregnant assist teams, and materials wants for households. Nonetheless, people at Bellevue say, they’re stretched skinny and feeling the stress. “We want extra employees,” says Maron-Knobel. “It is simply not tenable.”

Maria Vazquez talks with a affected person on the Maternity Care Unit at Bellevue Hospital.

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Maria Vazquez talks with a affected person on the Maternity Care Unit at Bellevue Hospital.

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Maria Vazquez poses for a portrait in a scientific suite at Bellevue Hospital.

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Maria Vazquez poses for a portrait in a scientific suite at Bellevue Hospital.

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The instability of the ladies’s dwelling conditions makes even the straightforward issues a herculean effort. Maria Vasquez, head nurse of the Girls’s Clinic at Bellevue, says many sufferers do not have a cellphone and are being shuttled round from shelter to shelter. “That has grow to be an issue for us, following the affected person. The place have they moved? The primary concern is that the affected person come again to us, and proceed bringing their infants right here.”

Davis says her employees has come to care deeply about these ladies, and there’s additionally quite a lot of hope right here. “These ladies are sturdy. It is unimaginable to suppose they walked via the jungle. They by some means made it right here. They’ve survived. And this little one is type of a brand new probability for hope in a brand new nation. And that type of retains me going.”

Within the final yr, New York Well being + Hospitals says it has assisted with 300 infants born to asylum-seekers.

Some New Yorkers say it is an egregious spending of taxpayer cash.

Others say it is the town’s humanitarian obligation, a part of the quintessential American story.

Two ladies chat as they wait to be assigned to a shelter, within the foyer of the Roosevelt Lodge.

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Two ladies chat as they wait to be assigned to a shelter, within the foyer of the Roosevelt Lodge.

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Liz, from Peru, can also be a affected person at Bellevue’s Girls’s Well being Clinic. Right here, she explains the lit candles to her daughter in a church in Midtown Manhattan. She does not like to depart her room on the resort, however as her due date nears she tries to get out and stroll. Her favourite place to go to is that this church, the place she hopes to baptize her youngest youngsters.

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Liz, from Peru, can also be a affected person at Bellevue’s Girls’s Well being Clinic. Right here, she explains the lit candles to her daughter in a church in Midtown Manhattan. She does not like to depart her room on the resort, however as her due date nears she tries to get out and stroll. Her favourite place to go to is that this church, the place she hopes to baptize her youngest youngsters.

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And within the dimly lit, surprisingly magnificent ready rooms of the Roosevelt Lodge, it is unattainable to not marvel: The place do these individuals’s tales finish?

A number of days in the past, Yuniaski López, the hoarse-voiced lady who was frightened about having been pregnant on the journey, gave delivery to a wholesome child boy.

Estefani, the lady from Venezuela who shared about her assault, expresses a common need: “I would like to be who I was.” On the very least, she’d prefer to work as a nurse once more. Perhaps taking good care of the aged.

The Biden administration lately prolonged TPS, or Momentary Protected Standing, to some Venezuelans. And, New York state has introduced a program for eligible migrants, which guarantees to open hundreds of jobs in industries the place there are labor shortages. This might imply López would possibly get a piece allow.

Individuals stroll previous the Roosevelt Lodge, which has been transformed to the principle processing heart for migrants arriving to New York Metropolis.

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Individuals stroll previous the Roosevelt Lodge, which has been transformed to the principle processing heart for migrants arriving to New York Metropolis.

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Households chat within the hallway on the maternity care unit within the Roosevelt Lodge.

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Households chat within the hallway on the maternity care unit within the Roosevelt Lodge.

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For Roukhaya, the lady from Chad, there’s not such a transparent path. Her child woman was born a couple of days in the past. In Arabic her title means “love within the sky.” Roukhaya sadly observes that she wants a 15-year reprieve: ladies typically get circumcised between delivery and 15 years of age. Within the meantime, she’s hoping to get asylum, however she’ll be becoming a member of over one million candidates who’re awaiting processing.

As she breastfeeds, she leans in, and places her face to her child’s brow. The chaos of the resort appears to vanish, and Roukhaya repeats a kind of mantra:

“For her I’ll do it. For her, I’ll do all the pieces. Every thing potential. Every thing.”