Mama Bear

by Shirley Smith

  Dr. Young shooed everyone out of the room and gave us a few minutes to process everything. I had JR put on gospel music to keep me calm, “I Need You to Survive” by Hezekiah Walker: “You are important to me, I need you to survive. I need you, you need me.”

  I held my hands on my quiet belly and was praying to Dakota’s spirit, and to God, for the two of them to be of one accord. I knew if she could stay, that I could feed her, take care of her, I could weather any storm for her. I just needed her to survive. Life broke my mother, but I had survived to be a good mother for my daughters. If you can survive, Dakota, I can do the rest, just survive. I need you to survive. I love you. Dakota, I need you to be here. JR and I prayed her up, inside my womb. Holding the space open between life and death until we were spent and could let God take hold.

  Dr. Young came back in the room and whispered, “Okay, we will leave her in, and check you every ten or fifteen minutes. Shirley, don’t hesitate to push that button if something doesn’t feel right.”

  In my memory, it seemed like days later, but it was only a couple of hours later, around five o’clock on my second day in the hospital. It was the day that JR had an appointment to get his cast taken off. His doctor was going to be at the arena only that day, and it took less than an hour to get a cast cut off. He kept saying, “That can wait,” but I told him, “Nothing is happening but me lying here with my butt up in the air. Do something normal, even if it’s getting the cast off. Just go and come back.”

  As soon as he left, I felt so hot it was like my brain was melting. I pressed the nurse’s button.

  Dr. Young came right back in the room. My fever was spiking again. She said, “Shirley, it’s you or your baby. I know you want to wait, but the wait is over. You are sick. You need to agree to let me take her.”

  All the things that happened seemed impossible in such a short period of time. I called JR. “Honey, you have to come back. They are going to induce labor.” Nurses came and lowered the bed, put Pitocin in my IV. Dr. Young checked my cervix.

  I had sent JR away, trying to be all brave and keep things normal. He had missed Demi’s birth eight years ago because he had a game that day. I needed him. I needed somebody. I put my thoughts on Dakota. God, please let Dakota live. I wasn’t thinking about my own life, just hers. They took my hands off my belly and guided me to wrap them around the plastic bed rails to keep them out of Dr. Young’s way.

  That’s when I felt something wet on my left side. I told Dr. Young, “Can you look and make sure I didn’t pee on myself?” She was in get-shit-done mode. She didn’t smile or put her hand on my hand but pulled up her little rolling stool, put one glove on, and said, “She’s hemorrhaging.” I remember my cousin Lynette saying she was hemorrhaging every time she was on her period. I could tell this was different.

  Ambulance sirens were going off in my head: hemorrhaging. Dr. Young yelled it this time, “She’s hemorrhaging!” She was looking at me but talking to the nurses and to anybody in earshot who could get in the room and help. She tried to hold my gaze, looking up at me from between my parted legs over her glasses. I knew in that moment that she was looking to make sure my eyes were still open.

  Everything was surreal: People came in with one type of cart and another. I lost what seemed like short snippets of time, like I would blink and somebody who was standing next to me would then be down next to Dr. Young. I smelled a familiar soap like lavender and looked over and there was my best friend from high school, Kawana. I had known that tall brown girl since tenth grade and we never had a single fight. She was like an angel in my life, such a pure, easygoing spirit; she knew my struggle. I don’t remember her getting there, so I thought God had sent her. She had her hand over my left hand. That’s when I realized Ma was on my right side with her hand over my other hand.

  Dr. Young’s voice got supercalm, which let me know death was in the room. “Shirley, we want you to push soon.”

  I was protective and delirious at the same time. “No! She has to stay in there.”

  Then Dr. Young was done with her calm voice. She spoke quickly and sternly: “Shirley, we need to go ahead and take Dakota. You have Demi and your husband, so we can’t lose you.” I finally understood. Dr. Young’s demeanor was like my mother’s sisters’; they could listen and play nice, but when shit needed to happen, they would snatch me into place.

  The next thing I knew, I was lying there, looking to the side at Kawana again. I held my eyes on her eyes. I could hear Dr. Young’s direct tone, giving instructions. The nurses were whisper-chatting, trying to prepare me for the worst. “Shirley, Dakota won’t make it. Her eyes won’t be open when you look at her. Okay?” I felt the push coming. At that very moment, JR, Pop, and Dimitrius burst into the room and moved the curtain. I could see them in my peripheral vision, but I was locked there staring at Kawana. I could feel JR and his family and Dr. Young, and I knew Dakota and I were being intentionally held in this life.

  I felt my whole body curl into two quick pushes, and Dakota came out. I whispered to Kawana, “I’m too scared to look.”

  Then God said, Look at her. I couldn’t look. God said, Look at her. I turned my head and saw these black beady ant eyes and in them a reflection of my eyes and my mother’s eyes the day she died, and I broke down crying uncontrollably and looked away.

  I felt JR kissing my forehead and everybody in the room whispered, “Look at her, Shirley. Look at her before they take her away.” The grief was so intense that I couldn’t turn my head. I couldn’t even make a sound, but I followed Kawana’s eyes to where they held Dakota in their gaze.

  My brain detached to save itself from what didn’t make sense, the sight of Dakota’s body outside of my body, here, and yet not here. I saw the nurses scoop this tiny being in something like Saran Wrap. She didn’t even have skin yet. JR cut the cord without touching her or disturbing the plastic. Dakota Ida Smith, one pound, stared out into the room at 6:56 p.m. looking for her mother. But her naked silhouette was wrapped up and gone from my sight and my touch. She was alive, that was the most important thing, she was alive.

  Dropping Jewels

  Repairing Maternal Instincts Interrupted by Disease, Drugs, and Poverty

  In the moments after Dakota was born and seeing her for the first time, I felt a disconnect, like my knowledge bank was empty, because this was different. It was a situation I was not familiar with. Before having a premature baby, I felt like I was the mother of everyone, even my mother. I had an older daughter, had raised my brother; I knew how this went. But I didn’t know anything about premature birth even though I knew so much about mothering from an early age. I had to tell myself, Shirley, you got this. You always been somebody’s mother. You have to draw on that experience the best you can. When the time comes to know what to do next, you will know.

  I did know what to do about some things, like to tell everybody to shut up and let me focus on prayer. But so many things I didn’t know. My instincts had been interrupted early in life by a need to kick into maternal survival mode when I was just a baby myself.

  I was a Black girl with a mom addicted to drugs, alcohol, crack cocaine, pills. There are all sorts of drugs out there that are attractive to Black mothers with children, fathers missing, a household to keep up, women who are basically set up by society to fail.

  According to the New York Times, by December 16, 1990, the majority of the ten thousand reported AIDS cases in the state of New Jersey were in Newark; of those cases 53 percent were diagnosed as intravenous drug users. In the nineties, my mother was a victim of both diseases, addiction and HIV/AIDS.

  But little Black girls don’t know anything about all of that. As a little girl you just look up to your mom, especially if you don’t have your dad on the scene. I looked up to my mom so much. I didn’t even know who my real dad was until later in life. Our moms are our heroes. She is the first person you see when you come out.

  If she goes missing, it is like your bread going missing. How can you survive
that? How can you draw on maternal instincts that have been so interrupted in their formation?

  When those drugs come between a mother and daughter, it takes away a Black girl’s mother-hero and it takes a whole lifetime to repair that damage. That is, if you get time to repair it. When the foundation is broken between mother and daughter, it’s a hard puzzle to put back together.

  Here’s some advice I offer the women out there to help them regain their instincts:

  Know that you have instincts coming out of your behind. You have survived so much that resilience is your knowledge.

  You have to stop doubting yourself. It’s less that your instincts have been interrupted than that your belief in your instincts has been interrupted.

  Here is some information I tell mothers to help them put the pieces of the puzzle back together when their maternal development was interrupted by their own mom being absent because of addiction to drugs and substances:

  Please understand that she does not want to be that way.

  Please love your mother unconditionally as best as you can in each stage that she is in.

  Remember, it’s the disease that’s taking her away from being the person she was called to be.

  Those times when she came out of it and tried to compensate, that’s because she knew that when she was in it, she was not her best self.

  Love her, she needs it.

  Part II

  Community as the Fish and the Loaves of Bread

  No matter how long I was told to be strong as a Black woman, I knew that even when I was a little girl, part of being strong was being brave enough to ask for help from my community. When I was growing up, there was a community of other folks on public assistance who shared information on where to move next for Section 8 housing, where to get the most food for your food stamp dollar, and so on. I was a kid and didn’t even know the power of that word-of-mouth underground community that helped my mother navigate a system of rules designed to keep her and her children in poverty. At thirty-six I’m just peeling back the layers of understanding that Black mothers have to grow up with a lot. Just being Black alone comes with the implanted idea that you have to be a strong hustler to navigate around systemic racism.

  I’m just now really seeing what all this has meant in my life and seeing all the other hustlers in my community who kept me afloat. Community showed up for me when I gave birth to Dakota and the shit was hitting the fan.

  4

  Liquid Gold

  Mama Jessie taught me that as long as you have community, there is no need for anybody to ever go hungry.

  I didn’t carry Dakota to term. They had to take her from my body to save us both, and I still had a severe infection to deal with. How was I supposed to produce milk? On the day she was born, I just sat all night in the dark. Nurses came in and out. Fluorescent light flowed in from the hallway. All those beeping sounds and blue lights and numbers glowed in the dark of my room. We had been sitting down to New Year’s Eve dinner, and in three days, things had gone from sugar to shit.

  All I knew was to talk to God. “God, you wouldn’t bring me this situation if it wasn’t for a reason.”

  Over the next couple of days my infection started to go away, my mind started to register what had happened. People gave me literature to read, and I tried to take in the words in the brochures about preemies and life expectancy, but nothing was going through my mind at that point but guilt. What did I do wrong? I should have had a healthier diet, shouldn’t have gone places, been so active. I was stuck.

  The hospital had a room across from the NICU that JR and I could rent out for a maximum of a week, and we did. There was a bed and a bathroom. Me and JR held that space every day that was allowed. The nurses started asking me if I could produce milk. I was feeling the pressure of what everybody kept saying, that breast milk is the best for Dakota. I tried to eat well, drink lots of water, tried to sleep and get rest in hope that my milk would come.

  Everybody and their granma had advice and I just wanted everybody to shut up. Of course, I couldn’t produce milk. My tiddies didn’t even blow up. I had carried only a couple of days past being four months pregnant. What the hell were they thinking by giving me breast milk advice? It was like they were ignoring the reality of the situation and making the guilt worse by acting like the reason I wasn’t giving milk was because I wasn’t drinking enough water or eating right. I never felt so useless in my life. My baby was down the hall struggling and I couldn’t do anything to feed her. I was just running around in my head trying to think of solutions. I had nothing. Even when I drank a bunch of water, I would only get a teardrop of milk. They would put it on a Q-tip and rub it on Dakota’s fragile little lips, which were no bigger than the tip of my pinky fingernail.

  They told me Dakota was still losing ounces. She was disappearing before I ever got to hold her. There was more talk of death and her funeral. She lay there, smaller than my own hand, flesh of my flesh struggling for her life, and me and JR couldn’t do anything but watch. It was like all of us were dying.

  Everybody in the basketball community was being supportive and trying to let each other know what was happening so they could be a strong network for us. On our last morning in the rented hospital room, Afra—I call her Affy—came to visit. She is the wife of one of JR’s teammates. She is a woman who has a glow to her. She is one of those people who lights up the room with her smile the way my mother used to. But she is also smart and informed, hands-on with her children, and a great wife.

  She had been nine months pregnant when I was four months and had just given birth to her son. She brought me a fruit basket with healthy grains and drinks. I told her I wasn’t able to produce milk. She saw how stressed out that made me and reminded me that this was her second child. She said in her British accent, “Darling each time my milk comes it’s like liquid gold. You see how I eat organic. We are family. I have milk for your baby and mine.”

  She listened to the whole status of Dakota’s weight dropping and didn’t roll into giving me advice about how to make my body do the impossible. Like it wasn’t even in question, she said, “Oh yes, Mommy. We are going to turn that around.” I talked to JR about it, he said, “Word! Yes.”

  I talked to one of the nurses about it and she said, “The hospital gets donated milk. It has to be screened; you can’t just get it straight from another woman.” By the time the hospital washed donor milk, it was free of the nutrients that could help Dakota put on weight and survive. It would be like feeding her water while watching her die.

  After a week of renting the family room, JR and I knew it was time to go. The anxiety hit. Leave, what the hell is that? I knew I had another child. I had to jump back in with Demi. But I couldn’t wrap my mind around leaving. I was so anxious; my heart was racing. They had cameras in the NICU where I could log in and see Dakota, but leave her? No! It was so hard, not like going to get fresh air for just a minute. Intentionally leaving her made me feel like I was giving up.

  The first time I left the hospital, I took Demi to school and came right back. The separation was too much to bear even though I had never held my Dakota. When I was driving back from Demi’s school, I kept thinking, Is she okay, are they treating her okay, will she not feel my presence and realize I’m not in the room? In the two hours I’m gone will she take a turn for the worse? Damn! How do I do this?

  Dakota was only a couple of weeks old. The hospital staff was urging us to move into a new normal. I didn’t want to be selfish to other families who needed the family room. Our turn was over, and we needed to deal with our new lives. If it wasn’t for them gently telling me I didn’t have a choice but to go home to my own bed, I don’t think I would have ever left. I was a mess.

  The anxiety of being removed from Dakota every night made it clear to me that I needed to do whatever was necessary to get Dakota strong enough to come home. I wasn’t even thinking about rules and following them or breaking them. I stopped considering the rules and followed my
instincts. I did what I needed to do for my child’s survival.

  Affy, her husband, her three-year-old, and her brand-new baby lived near Demi’s school. So in the morning I dropped Demi off at school and drove over to their house. I made coffee and played with her toddler and bounced her newborn while she pumped liquid gold. She was selfless, and I needed that.

  Dressed in my daily wear of sweatpants, sneakers with no socks, T-shirt, and a ball cap, I took the pumped milk and my writing notebooks for my day at the hospital. I told myself, Fret not, and walked right into the NICU to feed my Dakota.

  I smiled at those nurses with “my” milk labeled like I had pumped it. I heard God say that the rules about donor milk were the rules of man, not his rules. So I told the lie loud enough for the nurses to hear me, “Good morning, Dakota Bear. Time for Mommy’s milk.”

  Affy and I did this for three weeks, and I thank God for her and her love; I knew to ask and listen to my instincts, to stop doubting. I knew that Affy was the community I needed to step in, to listen and do. Dakota gained her first solid pound on that liquid gold.

  5

  Reaching Out to My Othermothers

  Community can be defined in all kinds of ways, from the sistah who sees you can’t feed your child because your milk hasn’t come in, to the neighbor who is the only one in the building who has paid her phone bill and becomes the lifeline for all the neighbors who need to dial out for help. Then there is the community that sits right in front of us. If you sift through your family members, there are always the ones standing right there, who have been there all of your life, ready to pitch in.