46. ON WINGS

THE BABY was late.

Sadia woke up on a Tuesday with one thought: “I got to get the baby out.” Her doctor at St. Luke’s was planning to induce her that Saturday.

For a couple of months, she could barely drag herself out of bed. But that August morning in 2019, she sprang up as if she had wings on her back. Chol was at work; she drove by herself to Sylvan Beach, a village about 40 minutes away.

She entered the cool water of Oneida Lake, her long dress floating out around her. For two hours she swam, her printed turban like a flower along the water.

Then she drove back to Utica, turning onto Rutger Street, passing her grandmother’s house, and then her own house, before reaching Proctor Park. She walked around the long, green field for an hour.

“That didn’t work,” she said flatly.

Next, she headed to Planet Fitness, which she had recently joined. “I did the balls, the machines, everything.” Still no contractions, though she had stomach pains. Then, realizing that she was starving—she went to Fastrac and got a Slurpy and a sub.

That night she and Chol stayed up late watching movies. When she felt waves of pain, they called the hospital. “They said maybe it was the fake contractions,” Sadia said. And she managed to fall asleep. Then boom—a huge contraction woke her. As she jumped off the bed, her water broke.

For the next 36 hours, she stayed in a bed at St. Luke’s, in enormous pain. Her labor was not progressing. Chol—good humored and patient—never left her side.

He shot bits of video: In one, as he strokes Sadia’s face, she tries to bite his hand.

“Do I look like meat?” he asks, laughing.

“I feel like I’m dying!”

Rubbing her belly, he asks, teasingly, “Can I slide down?” Again, she tries to bite him.

Sofia was there. And Sadia’s in-laws were constantly in touch. But Zahara never called.

The first day Sadia was hospitalized, Chol’s mother called Zahara. Hurt and angry, she said: “You know our daughter is in labor!”

“Nobody told me!” Zahara said. She went to St. Luke’s to try to see Sadia. But she was turned away at the reception desk: They told her that no more than two people were allowed in the delivery room at the same time.

Sadia started to run a fever of 101. And the staff readied her for an emergency C-section. Three epidurals did not work, she said.

The baby boy—almost 11 pounds—was finally pulled from her. Afterward, Sadia started crying: “Oh, that’s my baby!”

Rajab was like a prince. His face was smooth and full-cheeked, his limbs strong and chubby. He latched on to Sadia’s breast right away. “He ran to it!” Sadia said. Each night, he slept for 17 hours straight.

Delighted, she hovered over the sleeping baby: “This is my pumpkin. My pumpkin!”

Sadia created a nursery starkly different from the children’s bedrooms in her grandmother’s house. She had grown up within walls the colors of African fruit—dark plums, lemons, and limes. The floors were covered with dark-patterned old rugs.

In contrast, Rajab’s room was light and spare. She and Chol had painted the walls a pale gray, not so different from the Utica sky. White blinds covered the window. A small, smiling elephant peered from one wall. The wooden floors were bare, except for a small rug with the same elephant.

The baby’s onesies—about 20—mostly cream colored, with tiny African animals, hung on an open rack.

Chol was hands-on from the start: At the hospital, he cut the umbilical cord and wiped the baby down. At home, he bathed and changed his son. When the baby’s pacifier disappeared, he ran out to get another.

Sadia saw him as an equal partner: “He has the same rights I do,” she said. “He’s an amazing dad.”

Sadia did not want anyone caring for Rajab, outside of a tight trio. “I won’t let nobody babysit my child, except for my mother-in-law,” she said. “It’s not a matter of trust. It’s about how I want my baby to be treated.”

“I want him to be the only person focused on. I don’t want curse words and stuff. I don’t want you to cook—to do anything but pay attention to my baby.”

When her sisters clamored to babysit, Sadia said, “No, I’m good.” She did not even want Sofia watching Rajab. She worried she would be distracted by her daughter, Amrah.

“I’m going to be”—Sadia searched for the words—“a helicopter mom,” she said, laughing. “A bulldozer mom! Not the basic Somali Bantu mom.” She saw her mother-in-law as a model parent. Sadia had recently stayed with her in Syracuse for a week. Amal gently showered her daughter-in-law’s swollen body. She cooked nutritious meals, made her rest, sent her off to the movies. She encouraged her to lose the weight she had gained.

Sadia worried she would be hit by postpartum depression, like so many of her young aunts and cousins. But even her old depression had vanished.

Her eyes were bright and clear. Her face was bare. She had pulled on a black T-shirt and pants.

“I feel like I’m brand new,” Sadia said.

With Rajab, Amal was intuitive and patient: Even in the middle of the night, she jumped up, fed the baby, changed him, and brought him back to Sadia.

“I’m like, ‘Ma—you don’t have to!’ ” Amal hoped the young couple would move close by. But Sadia was content in Utica: “Syracuse? All that traffic—no!” Zahara still had not seen her grandson.

She had stopped by the hospital a second time. And she was again turned away, because of the two-visitor rule. But Sadia was suspicious of her mother’s intentions. “Fake!” Sadia said. “Just showing up? She knows the rules—she had most of her kids at that hospital!”

Sadia had now been home for two months; her mother still had not called.

Weeks later, I asked Zahara if she had seen Sadia’s baby. She was quiet for a full minute. Then she said, sorrowfully, “The child is innocent.”

Halima also nursed a sense of great hurt.

Sofia overheard her on the phone, talking with a relative: “Sadia abandoned us. She’s content with not having a relationship with her mother and grandmother.”

Sadia felt her fate had changed: She was no longer the least-favored child, but beloved. “I found my mom and dad.”

Amal and Moyluk had expectations; Sadia liked that. “They’ve already told us they’re not going to babysit unless Chol goes back to school,” she said, smiling. They expect Sadia to have a career.

So does Chol. “I want you to make something of yourself,” he told her. For her own sake and for the baby’s. “You never know in life—something could happen to me.”

She was touched that Chol had recently bought her a laptop, and also paid for her US citizenship application. She was excited about taking the naturalization exam; Sofia was taking it too.

Ralya had recently become a citizen; Mana became one years ago.

There are 100 questions on the study sheet for the civics part of the test. Examiners choose 10 questions; applicants must answer 6 correctly.

Sadia enjoyed learning how the US government works: “I never really knew anything,” she said.

When the baby falls sleep, Sadia puts on her headphones.

As she cooks and straightens up—moving around her light-filled apartment—she listens to the exam tape.

“I’m memorizing it,” she said, proudly.

What is the supreme law of the land?

the Constitution

What does the Constitution do?

sets up the government

defines the government

protects basic rights of Americans

The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words? We the People