Baby Blues

In a small city, Nnena carries her pregnancy like a secret shame, hiding her body from the man who calls her beautiful. Lota, a driver, showers her with compliments, but her mirror holds another truth. Her employer, a psychologist named Dr. Jade, watches her scrub floors as if work is a penance. At a prenatal visit, a warning lands hard: high blood pressure, and rest is not optional. Lota brings his mother, Mama, to stay as the due date approaches. Yet rest will not feed the family, so she keeps working until labor ambushes her at seven months. The doctor demands a 700,000 naira deposit for a C-section; Lota has half, and Mama, his mother, supplies the remainder. Ngozi is pulled into the world safely, but the danger does not end there. Back home, the baby cries and Nnena does not feel the pull a mother should. Stretch marks on her belly become a courtroom, and she is found guilty each morning. Sleep abandons her; food loses its taste. When Lota tries to hold her, she flinches, and their words sharpen into a quarrel. The breaking point arrives on an ordinary afternoon: she leaves two-month-old Ngozi with a teenage girl named Boma and walks home alone, craving a few hours of darkness. Lota retrieves the baby, and his fury meets her confession—she is drowning, and she only wanted to sleep. From the house where Nnena earns her keep, Dr. Jade watches the slow collapse and names the illness: postpartum depression. In that office, Nnena begins therapy and speaks words she has never uttered. Lota, still angry but terrified, joins a couple's session and learns to listen. He takes her hand and tells her that her stretch marks are the map of her sacrifice, not a stain. Slowly, Ngozi becomes a child she recognizes, and the nights grow lighter. In the last scene, Nnena holds her daughter on a chair near the window, not performing motherhood for anyone, simply breathing with it. The story rests there, like a baby finally asleep in its mother's arms.