Irene Jimenez: Baby Girl

Baby Girl
Irene Jimenez was only 19 when she gave birth to her first baby in San Antonio Matute, Mexico. The baby was expected to be a healthy girl. Jimenez was waiting for her daughter with so much joy and expectation. She had all of her things ready and waiting for her. When it was time for labor, complications started. The umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck and her head was facing the wrong direction. The emergency cesarean was too late to save the baby. In all the chaos Jimenez was never able to see her daughter.
“I never saw her. I never met her,” said Irene. It wasn’t until after her baby’s funeral that she finally saw a photo taken from a family member. At the tomb site Jimenez’s family named the baby girl, Paloma, a
“Everytime I would see her photo, I would go crazy,” said Irene. Yelling and pleading at night “my daughter! Where is my daughter?” Some nights her husband said that she would sit up straight in the bed and act as if she was combing her baby’s hair. Jimenez had fallen into depression. She stopped eating and at one point she weighed 85 pounds. Irene remembers wanting to die because all she wanted was to do was be with her daughter. Having extreme hair and weight loss Jimenez’s husband took the photos away from her and hid them. Irene has not seen her baby since then; he hid them so well, that till this day no one has been able to find them.
American Dream
Once Jimenez recovered her strength and health she decided that a change of atmosphere would help. Telling her husband, who had been traveling repeatedly between the United States and Mexico for work, that she wanted to travel across the border. They arranged for two coyotes to help her travel to the United States: one to get her from Tijuana, Mexico to San Diego, CA and the other to take her from San Diego, CA to Los Angeles, CA.
“The worst line (of crossing) was from Tijuana to San Diego…They told us not to look back. [Yelling] Run, run, run. We ran for about 15 minutes without stopping,” said Jimenez. She had successfully travelled across the US
She put all her effort into selling. “I was on a bicycle, because I didn’t have a car or anything,” said Jimenez. Travelling with her backpack, she started to sell. “When I had to sell something I went on [my] bicycle…sometimes I had to go far. I would show up with my legs numb, I couldn’t handle them, but I kept going,” said Jimenez. Since she started selling there has never been a moment that she has said, “I don’t have money.”
Sioux Falls
Jimenez and her husband decided to move to Sioux Falls because he wanted to be closer to his family. When she arrived Irene was set on not working and just selling Mary Kay. Yet, she decided to go work at John Morrell’s for a while until money was steady. However, when she realized how good the checks were she kept working and had Mary Kay as a sideline job. At John Morrell’s is where she met her best friend Gabriela Comparan.
The Last Baby
Irene was told by her doctors that she had problems with her ovaries. Which caused a shock when she figured out she was pregnant for the fourth time. This time the doctors told her she would have to have a cesarean because of her age. The doctors said she was expecting a boy. To everyone’s surprise the doctor was wrong. “When I saw them put on her pink cap, I said yes, it’s my girl,” said Jimenez. She named her Crystal. When she looked at her daughter she kept remembering the