Cine Prime

My Sister Told the Doctor I Didn't Want My Baby. I Couldn't Stand Up Long Enough to Tell Her I Was Sick. My sister Rabia walked into my bedroom without knocking, looked at my three-week-old son, and asked, "Zainab, when did he last eat?" I opened my mouth. I honestly couldn't remember. Ahmed was born by emergency C-section. I lost a lot of blood, two bags' worth, and the doctors told me I was lucky. I came home on day five. Since then I'd been tired in a way I don't have a word for. Cold in the middle of June. Dizzy every time I stood up. My heart raced when I sat up too fast. My milk never came in. No fullness, nothing, no matter how long I tried. My husband Faisal had gone back to work after a week, and my mother brought food but couldn't stay. Rabia is a paediatric nurse. She had brought a baby scale from her hospital in a tote bag. She put Ahmed on it without asking. "Two point nine," she said. "He was three point four." "He's feeding. I give him formula." "How often?" "When I can get up." "When you can get up." She lifted him off the scale. He didn't cry, and that scared us both, though only she said it. "Zainab, this baby is weak." "I know. I keep telling Faisal I feel strange..." "You've been in bed since I got here. Mummy says you haven't bathed in a week." "I can't stand without the room spinning." "You've said that for ten days." Her voice shook, and I realised she was frightened too. Fear makes people certain. "I've seen this at work. Mothers who struggle to bond. Mothers who get depressed. There's no shame in it." "I'm not depressed." "Then tell me honestly. Do you want this baby?" It landed like a slap. I had waited six years for Ahmed. I'd lost two pregnancies before him. I cried when they put him on my chest. I tried to explain, but my hands were shaking and my words kept slipping away, and what came out was slow and thick. "How can you ask me that?" "Because you didn't answer." "Mama?" Aiza stood in the doorway in her school uniform, seven years old, holding a bottle with a crooked nipple she had clearly assembled herself. White formula powder dusted her sleeve. "Khala said you don't want Ahmed." She had been on the stairs. She had heard everything. "No, jaan. That isn't true." "Then why doesn't he cry?" Her voice cracked. "I made his milk. I watched the video on your phone. I used the scoop. I did it right." She turned to Rabia. "Mama's just tired. Please don't take him." Rabia's face softened for one second. "Aiza, go and play." "If you don't want him," Aiza said to me, slowly, as if testing the words, "can I keep him?" Nobody spoke. She came closer and put the bottle into my hand, gently, the way you hand something to a patient. Then she climbed onto the end of the bed and pulled the blanket over my feet. I wanted to say I love you both more than my life. But the room tipped sideways, and the sentence wouldn't line up, and all that came out was, "I'm sorry," to a seven-year-old. Rabia phoned Faisal from the corridor. He was home within forty minutes, tie crooked, and my mother Shagufta arrived behind him with a flask of soup. Nobody asked how I felt. They asked what was going on. "I'm taking Ahmed to my ward," Rabia said. "He's dehydrated, and they'll admit him. I'll tell them the truth. His mother isn't managing." "Rabia, please. I just need to see a doctor..." "You need to want to get better first," my mother said. She didn't say it cruelly. She said it wearily, and that was worse. "In our time we nursed through fevers. Your cousin's wife had twins and never complained. You're strong, Zainab. You just have to try." Faisal stood at the foot of the bed. "Maybe it's better for a few days," he said quietly. "Just until you've rested." That is how my husband agreed to let my sister carry my newborn out of our house. Aiza ran after her car in her socks, all the way to the gate.