“You will have your father’s eyes,” she murmured one evening, tracing circles on her skin. “And my stubbornness. We’ll read every book together. I’ll teach you how to make *msemen* the way my mother taught me. You’ll never feel alone, my love. Never.”
Doctors were less poetic.
The obstetrician at the private clinic in Fes, Dr. Amal Karimi, was a serious woman in her forties who did not hide her alarm. “Mrs. Ekwensi, your blood pressure is already elevated. Your placenta is showing signs of calcification. At sixty-five, the risks of preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, placental abruption, and chromosomal abnormalities are extremely high. We need to monitor you very closely.”
Margaret only smiled. “I have waited longer than you have been alive, Doctor. I can handle a few risks.”
She followed every instruction. She took her vitamins religiously. She attended every ultrasound. At the twenty-week scan, the technician’s face tightened.
“Is something wrong?” Margaret asked, suddenly anxious.
The technician hesitated. “The baby… is measuring quite large. Very large for gestational age. But the heartbeat is strong.”
Margaret’s heart soared. A big, healthy child. A fighter, just like her.
Her family, however, grew more worried with each passing month. Aisha moved in temporarily to help. Neighbors brought food and whispered behind her back. The local mosque imam visited and prayed over her, but even he could not hide the pity in his eyes. Margaret ignored them all. She bought tiny clothes in yellow and white, folded them neatly in the wooden crib she had kept in storage for forty years, and waited.
The final month was agony.
Her back ached constantly. Her ankles swelled until she could barely walk. Breathing became difficult as the massive belly pressed against her lungs. Yet every kick, every roll, every hiccup from within filled her with such joy that she wept openly in the middle of the night, thanking God between sobs.
On a warm Thursday evening in May, the contractions began.
