Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of news and
Speaker 1: curture Latino USA. Latin Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa. We
Speaker 1: bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered to you,
Speaker 1: overlooked by the rest of the media, and while the
Speaker 1: country is struggling to deal with these, we listen to
Speaker 1: the stories of Black and Latino Studios United, Latino Front,
Speaker 1: a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of the movement.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Inojosa, nose Bayan. Hello, my dear Latino USA listener.
Speaker 1: You know, living on the Texas Mexico border is challenging
Speaker 1: for a lot of reasons right now, and so today
Speaker 1: we wanted to bring you a story about what it's
Speaker 1: like to give birth in southwest Texas, where there's only
Speaker 1: one hospital serving a region of twelve thousand square miles,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't get better on the Mexican side of
Speaker 1: the border. Brisa Levezma knows this all too well. She
Speaker 1: lives in Ohinai in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, but
Speaker 1: she works in the Texas bordered town of Presidio. For
Speaker 1: the birth of her second child, Bisat, decided to schedule
Speaker 1: a c section at the only maternity hospital available in
Speaker 1: southwest Texas. It's called Alpine. Bisa thought it would be
Speaker 1: safer than delivering in Mexico, but things didn't go as planned.
Speaker 1: This is a story from our friends at Marfa Public Radio.
Speaker 1: It's part of the series So Far from Care. We're
Speaker 1: going to find more stories about the challenges women are
Speaker 1: facing to access reproductive healthcare in the Big Bend area.
Speaker 1: Here's the episode. It's called Alone on This Side.
Speaker 2: It was a cold night in February up on a
Speaker 2: highway through the oil fields of the Permian Basin. And
Speaker 2: if you've been up there, you know people tend to
Speaker 2: drive pretty fast, lots of f one to fifties and
Speaker 2: big tank trucks. But there was one little car that
Speaker 2: was moving a lot slower than the rest, and everybody
Speaker 2: was honking at it, passing it, trying to get it
Speaker 2: to go faster. What they didn't realize was that this
Speaker 2: car was actually in more of a hurry than anybody
Speaker 2: else on the road because inside the woman in the
Speaker 2: passenger seat was in laborer.
Speaker 3: Partners.
Speaker 2: That's Brisa Levesma. She'd been having contractions for more than
Speaker 2: a full day by this point. Her mom Lauda was
Speaker 2: driving as fast as she could, but Lauda lives in
Speaker 2: a small rural community in Mexico, and she wasn't used
Speaker 2: to having to keep pace with oil field workers. Yes on,
Speaker 2: this was an emergency, and she was trying to keep
Speaker 2: her foot on the gas, but she was watching all
Speaker 2: these huge trucks zoom by and didn't want to get
Speaker 2: in an accident. Meanwhile, Brisa was in a lot of
Speaker 2: pain and they were both trying to keep calm in Miauela.
Speaker 2: In the car, they talked about Brisa's grandma, Lauda's mom,
Speaker 2: who died just a few years before, remembering her. Trying
Speaker 2: to distract themselves with stories, Lauda told b He says
Speaker 2: she felt like Thelman Louise, two women on the run
Speaker 2: down a desert highway that made them laugh and then
Speaker 2: also cry. I me and Rosenthal and this is so
Speaker 2: far from care. If you heard our first episode, you
Speaker 2: know that long, scary drives like this one aren't uncommon
Speaker 2: in West Texas. There's only one hospital in the Big
Speaker 2: ben region, serving an area of twelve thousand square miles.
Speaker 2: People here have even given birth on the side of
Speaker 2: the road because the delivery room was just too far away.
Speaker 2: But the situation Brisa faced was even more dramatic than
Speaker 2: what we're used to out here, because she'd already been
Speaker 2: to that one hospital and they couldn't help her. Britisa's
Speaker 2: story is about a real low point in access to
Speaker 2: reproductive care out here, when the only maternity ward in
Speaker 2: far West Texas started shutting down. But it's also about
Speaker 2: another force that shapes life in the region. One you
Speaker 2: might not immediately connect to healthcare. That's the border and
Speaker 2: what it can mean to somebody becoming a mom, how
Speaker 2: it can divide a family but also create options where
Speaker 2: there seemed to be none. I met Brisa last year
Speaker 2: at a cafe in the border town of Presidio. She
Speaker 2: came in with her mom and her baby daughter.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Barisa lives just across the Rio Grande in Ohinada Chiuahwa,
Speaker 2: but she has a green card and she works in Presidio.
Speaker 2: Her prenatal visits were here in town, and she'd scheduled
Speaker 2: a c section at the Hospital Alpine, an hour and
Speaker 2: a half away. She'd had one before with her first child,
Speaker 2: so the doctors thought that was the safest way to.
Speaker 4: Go brevia, more complicate than canine pusil.
Speaker 2: They'd planned everything out. Brisa's mom was in town to
Speaker 2: be with her for the birth, and the doctor Brisa
Speaker 2: had seen her whole pregnancy would deliver the baby. But
Speaker 2: five days before the section was scheduled, Brisa started having
Speaker 2: contractions and they lasted all night, so in the morning,
Speaker 2: she and her mom headed for the hospital, but when
Speaker 2: they got there.
Speaker 5: No, we are personal, but.
Speaker 2: The staff told them the maternity ward was about to
Speaker 2: close post pandemic. Like lots of rural hospitals, Big Ben
Speaker 2: Regional Medical Center was really struggling by the summer of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one. They didn't have the staff to keep
Speaker 2: everything running, so that meant for part of the week
Speaker 2: the maternity war would go on something called diversion. Basically,
Speaker 2: it was closed and that would go on for days
Speaker 2: at a time. So if you went into labor during
Speaker 2: that period and didn't want to give birth in the
Speaker 2: er with whatever staff was on hand, you had to
Speaker 2: make it to another hospital, and the closest one was
Speaker 2: in Fort Stockton, another hour away, But he said, her
Speaker 2: mom decided to head back to Mexico. They were hoping
Speaker 2: she could wait until the ward reopened. But by the
Speaker 2: time they got to Marfa, still more than sixty miles
Speaker 2: from home, the pain was getting worse, so they turned
Speaker 2: around again and drove to Fort Stockton. On the way there,
Speaker 2: Brisa says they lost service and they couldn't get it
Speaker 2: at the second hospital either, But he says husband was
Speaker 2: back in Ohinaga with their older daughter and they couldn't
Speaker 2: reach him for hours.
Speaker 5: Navia the lips p lesnou po now.
Speaker 2: They stayed at the hospital until nighttime, but then Brisa
Speaker 2: says the staff told her it wasn't time to give
Speaker 2: birth and that their doctor was heading home for the day.
Speaker 2: Laura couldn't believe it isn't a She said, I give
Speaker 2: birth to four kids. I know she's about to have
Speaker 2: her baby. Barisa says the nurse unduty told them I'm
Speaker 2: the only one here is if you're gonna have your baby,
Speaker 2: She says. The nurse said, I'll be the one to
Speaker 2: deliver it. But it won't be a sea section. It'll
Speaker 2: be a natural birth. Now, after you've had one sea section,
Speaker 2: vaginal birth can be really risky, but in Fort Stockton,
Speaker 2: but he Sai didn't feel like she had a choice.
Speaker 2: She called up her original doctor, the one who was
Speaker 2: supposed to deliver the baby. She says, he told her,
Speaker 2: if you can move, move, try and get to Odessa.
Speaker 2: That's another eighty miles away, but there's a big hospital there.
Speaker 2: So they got in the car again and we're back
Speaker 2: where we started. Lauda went from this two lane road
Speaker 2: to the interstate, suddenly surrounded by honking trucks. Brisa in tears,
Speaker 2: twenty four hours into her contractions.
Speaker 3: Yeah and I.
Speaker 2: Well really They got to the hospital in Odessa around
Speaker 2: ten thirty and in the middle of the night, after
Speaker 2: driving nearly three hundred miles between two countries and three hospitals,
Speaker 2: Brisa had her sea section and her baby, Andrea was born.
Speaker 2: Brisa wasn't the only person with a multi hospital trek
Speaker 2: like that. Over the full year that the maternity ward
Speaker 2: in Alpine was on diversion, the hospital told me fourteen
Speaker 2: women were turned away while in labor. Now the unit
Speaker 2: is open twenty four to seven again, but the hospital
Speaker 2: isn't equipped to deal with emergency cases, so if the
Speaker 2: delivery is complicated or the baby comes early, it can
Speaker 2: still mean a trip to Odessa. Brisa's story really brought
Speaker 2: it home for me. Here, even if you have everything
Speaker 2: planned out, you can find yourself in a really scary situation,
Speaker 2: far from help, having to make big, high stakes decisions
Speaker 2: on your own. It was especially jarring for Brisa because
Speaker 2: the experience was so different from the first time she'd
Speaker 2: given birth back in Mexico.
Speaker 4: To Planifica zahiron Oke Is the Mamosa Programrte Unassaria Talia
Speaker 4: at Talora.
Speaker 5: As soon as.
Speaker 2: Santas, she said before. Everything went smoothly. She came in
Speaker 2: at the scheduled time, they did the C section, took
Speaker 2: the baby out. It wasn't even painful, and that was
Speaker 2: just a few hundred miles away. When we talk about
Speaker 2: far West Texas, we often talk about how isolated this
Speaker 2: region is, all these tiny towns in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2: But that's only true if you forget about Mexico. Okinaga,
Speaker 2: where Burisa lives, isn't a huge city, maybe twenty five
Speaker 2: thousand people, but it's just across the river from Presidio,
Speaker 2: and it does have a hospital. For Burisa, though, deciding
Speaker 2: where to go for care and where to have her
Speaker 2: daughter was more complicated than what was closest to home.
Speaker 2: Bisa is from a smaller city south of oj and
Speaker 2: she and her husband Efren had their first daughter, Michelle,
Speaker 2: near there. They moved to Okinaga not long after for work,
Speaker 2: but good paying jobs were hard to come by. Eventually,
Speaker 2: Bisa found work across the border in Texas, cleaning rooms
Speaker 2: at a resort down the river. She said the job
Speaker 2: was tough, but it was the best she could get
Speaker 2: for a couple of years.
Speaker 4: Casidos esperandos buenos pos system physi.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Efrin didn't have a visa that entered the US,
Speaker 2: so he couldn't cross. Neither could little Michelle, so he
Speaker 2: was raising her almost single handedly. Brisa would come home
Speaker 2: to Ohinaga after a long day of work and basically collapse.
Speaker 2: The setup didn't feel sustainable for either of them, so
Speaker 2: when Brisa got pregnant again in twenty twenty one, they
Speaker 2: decided this time they'd have their daughter in the US.
Speaker 2: That way, she could cross two and they'd have options now.
Speaker 2: That decision meant Efrin wouldn't be able to be with
Speaker 2: Brisa when she went to give birth. When I met
Speaker 2: him later on, I asked him what that had been
Speaker 2: like for Himso, yes, they not being able to be
Speaker 2: there to accompany Brisa, to help his wife and his
Speaker 2: baby daughter.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 2: He said it felt like not having limbs. He felt useless. Luckily,
Speaker 2: Brisa's mom had a visa, so she wasn't completely alone.
Speaker 2: When they decided to go to the Texas route, Brisa
Speaker 2: and Lauda knew they were going to a smaller hospital,
Speaker 2: one far away, with fewer resources than one's in Chihuahua.
Speaker 2: That was a price Brisa was willing to pay, but
Speaker 2: Lauda said they didn't expect to find themselves speeding between hospitals,
Speaker 2: for the process to be so long and complicated and scary.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just the distance, Brisa said. Until they
Speaker 2: got to Odessa, it was hard for them to even
Speaker 2: understand what all the medical staff were telling them. She
Speaker 2: says almost no one spoke to them in Spanish. Her
Speaker 2: English is limited, but she said the pain helped her
Speaker 2: concentrate on understanding the important stuff. And Brisa told me
Speaker 2: she keeps thinking about other women she knows who've also
Speaker 2: given birth in the US. A lot of them don't
Speaker 2: speak English at all, and not even their moms can cross.
Speaker 2: Some have even lost their children in the delivery room
Speaker 2: and dealt with that totally alone.
Speaker 5: I am as camp Ala.
Speaker 2: Even before giving birth to Andrea, I'd been thinking she
Speaker 2: only wanted to have two kids, but now she's sure
Speaker 2: no not. I thought a lot about Bisa after our conversation.
Speaker 2: For her, living on the border meant possibility, increased options
Speaker 2: for work for medical treatment, but it had also separated
Speaker 2: her from her family and pushed her to choose a
Speaker 2: riskier option for her own health care. I wondered about
Speaker 2: the aftermath of that decision, what the border would mean
Speaker 2: for her as a mom, and whether a year and
Speaker 2: a half after her childbirth odyssey, she felt like she'd
Speaker 2: made the right call. So this summer I went to
Speaker 2: go meet her in Presidio at her job at the
Speaker 2: Mexican Consulate. But Hesa told me she'd been worried about
Speaker 2: what it would be like to go back to work
Speaker 2: after a maternity leave, but she said the consulate had
Speaker 2: been great about it. For the first few months. She'd
Speaker 2: been allowed to go home early every day. Now she
Speaker 2: heads out at four pm to pick up Andrea.
Speaker 5: And and that wasn't at first.
Speaker 2: Brisa and Eviden weren't sure how they were going to
Speaker 2: handle childcare, but on this front, the Mexican side of
Speaker 2: the border had come through for them. In Ohinanga, they
Speaker 2: found a nursery that would take Andrea starting at three months.
Speaker 2: We drove across the border into Mexico. No stopping required here.
Speaker 2: The Mexican officials just waved us through and then pulled
Speaker 2: up to the daycare. Brisa told me the nursery was
Speaker 2: subsidized by the federal government. She said it charged less
Speaker 2: for a month of care than the small daycare and
Speaker 2: Presidio did for a week. To enroll, Andrea had to
Speaker 2: be registered as a Mexican citizen, but compared to the
Speaker 2: process of getting a US visa, signing her up for
Speaker 2: dual citizenship was a breeze. But he's I could do
Speaker 2: it right at work, says he. The last time I'd
Speaker 2: seen Andrea, she was barely a month old. Now, at
Speaker 2: eighteen months, she'd grown into the little boss of the family.
Speaker 3: At home.
Speaker 2: In their new house, she showed off her outfit, a
Speaker 2: pink shirt that said my mom is magical. That's Prettysa's
Speaker 2: older daughter, Michelle. They're still waiting for her green card
Speaker 2: and evidence. It's now been three years since they filed applications,
Speaker 2: and the length of the whole pros has been hard
Speaker 2: on Brisa, and.
Speaker 5: It'sla and so Andrea.
Speaker 2: In the US, She says, it's still Brisa and Andrea
Speaker 2: against the world. The hospital trip wasn't Brisa's last long
Speaker 2: drive to care. Andrea's pediatric appointments were in Alpine. Brisa
Speaker 2: had to take the baby alone, and she says every
Speaker 2: time she panicked about Andrea by herself in the backseat.
Speaker 2: When the baby would start to cry, Brisa would pull over,
Speaker 2: leaving the car running to keep her warm and breastfeed
Speaker 2: her there on the side of the highway. She'd changed
Speaker 2: Andrea's diaper, play music, try to get her to go
Speaker 2: to sleep before getting back on the road.
Speaker 5: Altres Allo stops.
Speaker 2: Manuel. Was usually a two hour drive became three hours
Speaker 2: each way, and eventually Brisa decided it didn't make sense
Speaker 2: there was no pediatrician in Persidio, but they'd have to
Speaker 2: make it work with the regular doctor. When I visited,
Speaker 2: Efrin was also home, helping the girls pack for a
Speaker 2: trip to see their Grandma Lauda. He told me he
Speaker 2: still struggles with the ways the border keeps him from
Speaker 2: being able to support Brisa, but on the other hand,
Speaker 2: the limitations of the migration system have given him the
Speaker 2: chance to be a really active parent to Michelle, especially
Speaker 2: when she was little. With Pam, he said he's found
Speaker 2: little ways to bond with each daughter, dancing with them
Speaker 2: in the morning, getting to know their personalities as they form.
Speaker 3: The demos inclusive.
Speaker 2: And I asked Prisa and Efrin if they felt like
Speaker 2: considering everything the decision to give birth and Texas had
Speaker 2: been worth.
Speaker 3: It aid process there, you say, see.
Speaker 2: Briso said to a certain point.
Speaker 6: Yes, Alao, But if she'd known everything she knows now,
Speaker 6: she might have done things differently from the start.
Speaker 5: Chose is right officas.
Speaker 2: In healthcare in the US is overrated, She's decided. But
Speaker 2: if you're willing to try it, you give your kids options.
Speaker 2: If they want to study, if they want to work,
Speaker 2: if they want to travel, then they can. And in
Speaker 2: the end, she said this was the most important decision
Speaker 2: she and Evidence had made as parents. And she told
Speaker 2: me we could have said let her be born here,
Speaker 2: but we said no, We're going to give her the
Speaker 2: opportunity to not have to struggle. Once we'd finished talking,
Speaker 2: but Hesa drove me back across the bridge, stopping at
Speaker 2: the kiosk to show the customs officer our documents. While
Speaker 2: we waited for him to scan my passport, I thought
Speaker 2: about how this everyday experience for Brisa is one that
Speaker 2: half her family still doesn't share. The West Texas highways
Speaker 2: define this region for so many of us, and they
Speaker 2: were the site of Brisa's scariest moments and the first
Speaker 2: experiences of her daughter's life.
Speaker 5: And Alexorcista.
Speaker 2: Brisa says, she tells her family, I can still smell
Speaker 2: the oil. She remembers, the moon, the highway, the cars honking,
Speaker 2: her body twisted up like the girl in the Exorcist.
Speaker 2: But that landscape, those roads, Brisa's husband has never even
Speaker 2: seen them. I can't imagine them. So when she found
Speaker 2: herself scrambling to make game time decisions on the road,
Speaker 2: she says, he told her, you make the call. I
Speaker 2: can't tell you what to do. Before I met Brisa,
Speaker 2: I thought mostly about the loneliness that comes from a
Speaker 2: lack of options when it comes to care. But hearing that,
Speaker 2: I thought, here's a different kind of isolation, one that
Speaker 2: comes with choices, having to make decisions without being sure
Speaker 2: what's right, and having to do it alone. Brisa dropped
Speaker 2: me at the consulate and then turned around to cross
Speaker 2: the border again. As she drove off, I thought about
Speaker 2: something she'd said earlier when I asked what she wanted
Speaker 2: to do when all the visas were approved and her
Speaker 2: family could come to Texas together. She told me she
Speaker 2: wanted to bring them to the observatory in Fort Davis
Speaker 2: to see the Marpha Lights.
Speaker 5: Marpha Lights.
Speaker 2: And tourists come from all over the world to peer
Speaker 2: through a telescope at the stars, which shine more brightly
Speaker 2: here than almost anywhere else in the country. Brisa said
Speaker 2: she wants her family to be able to see them too.
Speaker 2: This episode of So Far From Care was produced by
Speaker 2: Zoey Kurland, Carlos Morales, and me Annie Rosenthal. Muchamlia Combarta,
Speaker 2: thanks also to Stephanie Quo and Ruxandra Guidi. The music
Speaker 2: you heard was composed and performed by Clara Brill, and
Speaker 2: the episode art is by Hannah Gentiles and Dio Kramer.
Speaker 2: So Far From Care is a production of Marfa Public
Speaker 2: Radio and is made possible by support from listeners like you.
Speaker 2: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find the
Speaker 2: rest of the episodes and ways to support the station
Speaker 2: at Marfa public radio dot org,