[ad_1]
An hour and a half after Giwa noticed that Landrum needed to have her sons with her, Caden and Dillon burst through the door of the hospital room. Holding Kingston in her lap, Landrum lit up at the sight of the boys. Caden, who is 4, ran to his new brother, gleefully grabbing at the infant. “Calm down,” Landrum said, smiling and patting the side of the bed. “Put out your arms, strong, like this,” she told him, arranging his small arms with her free hand. Gently, she lay Kingston in his brother’s outstretched arms. “It’s my baby,” he said excitedly, leaning down to kiss the infant all over his cheeks and forehead. “I luh you, brother.”
Dillon, 7, was more cautious. He stood near the door, watchful. “Don’t you want to meet your brother, Dillon?” Landrum asked. He inched closer, looking at the floor. “Come on, boy, don’t be shy. This is Kingston.” He sat on the other side of his mother, and she took the baby from Caden and placed him in Dillon’s arms. He looked down at the newborn, nervous and still hesitant. “It’s a real baby,” he said, looking up at his mother and finally smiling. “Mommy, you did it.”
“At that moment, I felt complete,” Landrum said later, tearing up, “seeing them all together.”
On a cool, sunny afternoon in March, Landrum led me into her living room, which now held a used couch — a gift from a congregant of her church, where she is an active member. A white plastic Christmas tree strewn with multicolored Mardi Gras beads, left up after the holidays, added a festive touch. Landrum handed me Kingston, now 3 months old, dressed in a clean onesie with a little blue giraffe on the front. Plump and rosy, with cheeks chunky from breast milk and meaty, dimpled thighs, he smiled when I sang him a snippet of a Stevie Wonder song.
Landrum had lost the baby weight and looked strong and healthy in an oversize T-shirt and leggings, wearing her hair in pink braids that hung down her back. There was a lightness to her that wasn’t apparent during her pregnancy. One word tumbling over the next, she told me that the new baby had motivated her to put her life in order. She had been doing hair and makeup for church members and friends out of her house to earn money to buy a car. She had applied to Delgado Community College to study to be an ultrasound technician. “I love babies,” she said. “When I look at ultrasound pictures, I imagine I see the babies smiling at me.”
Latona Giwa had continued to care for Landrum for two months after Kingston’s birth. The C.D.C. measures American maternal mortality not just by deaths that occur in pregnancy or childbirth, or in the immediate days afterward, but rather all deaths during pregnancy and the year after the end of pregnancy — suggesting the need for continued care and monitoring, especially for women who are most at risk of complications.
[ad_2]
Source link
