Friends, neighbors lean in to support new mother

THE PARENT: Yasmine Brooks, 30, of Mount Airy

THE CHILD: Cassius Carter, born March 18, 2022

ENVISIONING THE FUTURE: Yasmine says she can’t wait to hear her son talk and see him walk; for now, she takes a photo series each month. “I want to document how much he changes.”

Pickle juice was the only thing that relieved Yasmine’s morning sickness. Sometimes she could stomach orange juice, and she had a yen for chocolate. By the end of her second trimester, the nausea finally subsided, and she wanted to eat everything, especially seafood. And in the final month of pregnancy — as the days crawled past her due date to 41 weeks, then nearly 42 — she gobbled spicy food, pineapple shakes, and kiwi smoothies in an effort to bring on labor.

“None of that helped,” she says. “Babies will do what they want to do.”

As a girl, growing up essentially as an only child — her sister is 11 years older, and their mother died in childbirth with Yasmine — she envisioned a big family. She babysat, cared for her cousins, and worked at a day-care center when she was 17.

“I really thought I would have a lot of kids. Kids are wonderful: They’re innocent, they’re imaginative, they’re just … happy.”

Yasmine was born in Philadelphia and raised in Virginia; she returned to this area at 15 to live with her grandmother and attend high school in Dover, Del. After high school came community college and travel — to California, Texas, Florida, and Hawaii. “I love seeing new environments, new people,” Yasmine says. Later she trained to become a home health aide.

There were years of dating and partying, but never a long-enduring relationship. “I’m a free spirit,” she says. “If I found the right person who kind of completed me, then OK. I love kids, but I don’t really see myself with one person. And I just wanted children; it didn’t matter to me if I did it alone or in a family setting.”

Last June, an old high school friend came to visit. And a few weeks later, Yasmine felt certain she had stomach flu. “I took a test. Then another. I went to the doctor, and for sure, I was pregnant.

“It was unexpected, but once I realized I was pregnant, I thought: This is definitely what I’m doing. I was ecstatic. And terrified. I really wanted to be a mother. I think I was just in love with the fact of being a mom, no matter how it came about.”

Yasmine was also thrilled when an ultrasound showed the baby was a boy. She immediately knew she would name her son Cassius, a name she’d loved ever since studying Roman history. It was her sister who came up with Carter as a middle name.

At first, Yasmine didn’t tell the baby’s father about the pregnancy. But later, she reached out. The two are “easing into a better relationship” she says. “He’s seeing Cassius. But we’re just friends.”

While in some ways the pregnancy seemed ill-timed — ”there was such a rise in prices: groceries, gas, things like that,” Yasmine says — her friends and neighbors leaned in with a surge of support she never expected. One neighbor offered to go grocery shopping for her; others collaborated on a shower to supply her with newborn clothes and baby gear.

And while mid-pregnancy brought some foot swelling and mild hypertension, those discomforts were dwarfed by the wonder Yasmine felt as her body changed. “I fell in love with motherhood when I could feel him moving,” she says. “He constantly had the hiccups. When you first feel them kicking, it was just beautiful. Painful, but beautiful.”

She remained active, doing yoga and taking walks. A community parenting group, Parents as Teachers, connected Yasmine with other single moms who were learning to manage newborns. “I felt like I had a lot of people I could talk to and relate to.”

As her due date drew near, “I was excited to finally see what he looked like: I have to see what I’ve been creating. And I was terrified. It’s probably the scariest thing you’ll ever go through.”

At nearly 42 weeks, her OB recommended an induction; her labor, at Jefferson Abington Hospital, lasted three days. “I went natural, with a little painkiller. I didn’t want an epidural,” Yasmine says. “The whole three days, I only dilated about 3 cm. Cassius kind of refused to come out. He was pretty comfortable in there.”

Her sister remained by her side, and Yasmine recalls that time as “an out-of-body experience. Even though my body was going through all those changes, all that pain, I was at peace and resting.”

But as day four dawned with no significant progress, her doctor called for a C-section. “I didn’t want to go into surgery,” Yasmine says. “I was terrified. They had to give me something to conk me out. But I do remember him coming out and crying. He was so gorgeous. It was worth everything, everything that I had been through.”

The baby looked like a clone of his biological father — same hair, same eyes. And while the early weeks of parenthood — breastfeeding every two hours around the clock — wore her down with sleep deprivation, Yasmine says she and Cassius fumbled their way toward a routine.

“I think I just handle stress well,” she says. “I don’t freak out. I just go with the flow. At first, you get up every two hours, and it’s torture when you don’t have support and a routine. But now it’s every four hours. It’s getting easier.”

She’s charmed by the way Cassius stares at a friend’s crystal chandelier, watching light bounce off the glass. “He’s obsessed with watching people talk. His lips tighten; he gets to drooling. He’ll sit there and watch your mouth move forever.”

Yasmine worries about the future, about raising a son in a dangerous world. She wonders about the legacy she’ll leave. “Even though I just turned 30, I feel like I’ve just become responsible. Parenthood settles you. It’s not easy being a single parent. But if you’re strong enough, and you plan ahead, and you have support, it’s definitely possible.”