Hila Costacurta lives her life between two places, in Stockholm, Sweden with her partner Marius of nine years and here in Israel with the rest of her family. When she found out she was pregnant with her son, there was only one choice for her: To give birth for a third time at the hospital where she has come to feel completely at home.
Hila Costacurta and her newborn son at Rambam. Photography: Rambam HCC c/o Mako Health
Having grown up in Kiryat Bialik not far from Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, it comes as no surprise that Costacurta gave birth to her two daughters at Rambam. “All my births were in Rambam,” she explains, “Both before moving to Sweden and after. There is no replacing the Israeli healthcare system. I cannot replace Rambam, either. Here I feel at home, safe, and calm.”
The joyful event could not have come at a better time. Just before Hanukkah, the child that the Israeli-Swedish family was waiting for arrived. He managed to fill their hearts with light after the darkness that lingered following a stillbirth that preceded this pregnancy. “A year and a half ago, I came to Rambam in my fifth month of pregnancy,” she recounts. “It was a stillbirth, which happened without any warning or known reason. I did not think I would recover from this or if we would be able to conceive again. It was a very difficult chapter in our lives. It broke us,” she recalls. “After I felt well enough physically, I returned to Sweden for a short period of time, and then returned to Israel again. In Israel, I found out that I was pregnant. It was simply unimaginable. When we found out it was a boy, which we had hoped for, we realized that we had a miracle here.”
From the moment she found out she was pregnant, Costacurta decided to stay in Israel. At long last, Costacurta gave birth to her son by a caesarean section at Rambam, with the “Iron Swords” war as a backdrop and her Swedish husband absent due to flight restrictions. “In spite of everything, it was a very emotional event,” she says. “Immediately after the birth, I called [Marius] and told him that he had a son. He is so happy, there is no way to describe the feelings. I’m already waiting for them to meet.”
When asked whether she ever hesitated about giving birth this time in Israel, especially given the circumstances, she answers with a resounding ‘no.’ “I’m a Zionist and a patriot,” she declares. “The war didn’t change anything for me. This is my home, this is where my heart is. There is no substitute for Israel, not by any measure. Our hope is to eventually move here as a family and stay in Israel. It’s a process that started with this pregnancy.”
Based on an original Hebrew article on the Mako Health website.
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