Isabella’s Smile Lights Up Jenifer’s World

When Jenifer first learned she was pregnant, she didn’t feel joy or excitement. She felt fear.

At 24 years old, she faced the prospect of being pregnant alone. She was not in contact with the father. She did not have a job to pay for a new baby. She would even have to leave the police academy where she was studying.

“The first few months, I could not believe it”, she recalls.

Jenifer tried to continue with daily life as normally as possible while preparing to become a mother. Four months into her pregnancy, she began regular checkups and ultrasounds. She would be having a girl.

The day of the birth, Jenifer arrived at the hospital at 8:00 AM accompanied by her aunt. At midnight, she brought Isabella into the world.

The doctors quickly realised Isabella was not getting enough oxygen on her own and whisked her away. Jenifer did not have time to say hello to her new daughter or even see her.

The doctors returned a few hours later with shocking news: Isabella had a cleft.

Jenifer’s mind raced. There had been no sign of a cleft in the checkups or ultrasounds. No history of clefts either in her family or in Isabella’s father’s.

“The only thing I thought at that moment”, Jenifer shares, “was that nobody was going to love Isabella”.

Isabella’s doctors immediately reached out to Fundación Roja, Smile Train’s local partner. Three days later, Jenifer was still waiting anxiously at the hospital — Isabella was on a feeding tube and not ready to be discharged — when their staff paid her a visit.

“The day the doctors from the foundation came to the hospital, I met the whole team”, Jenifer remembers. “They made me feel calm and supported”.

After eight days, Jenifer and Isabella finally went home. Things were not easy. Isabella had difficulty eating due to her cleft and struggled to gain weight.

Further complicating their situation, Jenifer and Isabella were under strict lockdown because of the pandemic — isolation was the rule, and they could not go out or receive visitors of any kind.

“My friends and family supported me and helped me in everything I needed”, Jenifer says.

Fundación Roja was there to help, too. Romina, a nutritionist from the foundation, checked-up on Isabella by video call and made herself available for all of Jenifer’s questions. With her guidance, Isabella gradually started to gain weight.

At last, when lockdown rules eased, Jenifer and Isabella went to visit Fundación Roja in-person.

“I could see the love that the doctors had for Isabella”, she remembers.

They taught her that cleft surgery was not only possible for Isabella — it would also be free, thanks to their partnership with Smile Train.

“Knowing that they would cover all her costs was a relief since we did not have the financial means to do it”.

Still, Jenifer was anxious about sending Isabella into surgery. She felt so unsettled the night before the procedure that she was unable to sleep.

Isabella spent two hours in the operating room. Afterward, when Jenifer finally saw her baby girl, her nerves immediately turned to joy.

“I couldn’t believe how well she had turned out”, Jenifer says.

She immediately snapped a photo and sent it to her grandmother. Friends and family were amazed at Isabella's transformation.

“When all this started, I didn't know where to go”, Jenifer reflects, “and then I met the wonderful people from the foundation, and they supported us. Isabella was given everything”.

Today, Isabella is a happy, smiling kindergartener who loves to sing. She and Jenifer are each other’s closest companions. The team at Fundación Roja has stayed close, too. Thanks to Smile Train’s support, Isabella will keep seeing her team there for years to come for speech therapy, orthodontics, and other essential, long-term cleft treatments.

After initially feeling helpless when she learned Isabella had a cleft, Jenifer now has a clear message for other families facing the same situation.

“I would tell them not to be afraid”, she says. “It is not a disease. It is something physical that can be treated. There is a solution.

“The love that these children have, and that Isabella has, is something very special”.

“Thank you to Smile Train for everything they do”, Jenifer continues. “The change they’ve made in our lives is incredible — the possibility of accessing free surgery, and also receiving psychological and emotional support, and financial. I'm very grateful.

“I thank the donors, because they can’t imagine how much good they do for the children”.