I am one of my parents’ 10 children
Am number 5
Am told my mother birthed most of us at home accept the very youngest was born in a hospital.
My mother went into labor with me in Nana’s house in Baghdad.
My Nana lived in a
bedroom.. Yes a bedroom was her home. In the old Baghdad the used to be big (villas) where rich used to live with many bedrooms for the owners and their guests and rooms for their servants.
Upon entering the villa, a small corridor leads to an oval shape center of the house 3 stories level, with open sky over the center of the house… Various size rooms on main floor, the first one to the right was a room Nana called home.
There was no one rich there, all very poor people worn down walls and floors, rusty banisters and one common bathroom and one showering room for all families living in there, 50+ people.
Nana’s room was a storage, a mini kitchen, she had to cook outside her room, in the common are, she stored her bedding over a beautiful China cabinet, it was also a TV room, bedroom, guest room also the birth place where I was born.
The moment my first cry rang in the ears of my mother and Nana and the public nurse, I was told that I was comforted and stopped crying, my mother kept hearing the sound of a newborn baby cry: my mom asked Nana why do I still hear my baby cry even as she’s quiet? Nana told her, I hear a newborn cry too.
The nurse and my Nana rushed outside and found at the doorstep of the giant from door of the villa at 5am in the darkest cold hours of February 27, 1972 the found a baby girl with umbilical cord and fluids and blood on her still, was wrap warmly and abandoned….
The barren young woman who lived alone with her husband in the next room came at that moment to congratulate my mother but saw my Nana and the nurse walking back with shocked look on their faces holding a newborn baby….
Before I was leaving Iraq, I visited Nana in 1992 after the war.. Nana told me that story and took me outside and pointed at a beautiful blond wavy long hair, tall and had amazing grey green eyes.
She was the daughter my Nana’s neighbor prayed for.
Am number 5
Am told my mother birthed most of us at home accept the very youngest was born in a hospital.
My mother went into labor with me in Nana’s house in Baghdad.
My Nana lived in a
bedroom.. Yes a bedroom was her home. In the old Baghdad the used to be big (villas) where rich used to live with many bedrooms for the owners and their guests and rooms for their servants.
Upon entering the villa, a small corridor leads to an oval shape center of the house 3 stories level, with open sky over the center of the house… Various size rooms on main floor, the first one to the right was a room Nana called home.
There was no one rich there, all very poor people worn down walls and floors, rusty banisters and one common bathroom and one showering room for all families living in there, 50+ people.
Nana’s room was a storage, a mini kitchen, she had to cook outside her room, in the common are, she stored her bedding over a beautiful China cabinet, it was also a TV room, bedroom, guest room also the birth place where I was born.
The moment my first cry rang in the ears of my mother and Nana and the public nurse, I was told that I was comforted and stopped crying, my mother kept hearing the sound of a newborn baby cry: my mom asked Nana why do I still hear my baby cry even as she’s quiet? Nana told her, I hear a newborn cry too.
The barren young woman who lived alone with her husband in the next room came at that moment to congratulate my mother but saw my Nana and the nurse walking back with shocked look on their faces holding a newborn baby….
Before I was leaving Iraq, I visited Nana in 1992 after the war.. Nana told me that story and took me outside and pointed at a beautiful blond wavy long hair, tall and had amazing grey green eyes.
She was the daughter my Nana’s neighbor prayed for.
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