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Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Hours drag for mother left behind
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
Neurosurgeon Dr. Roger Hudgins bonds with Baby Noor at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
Abu Ghraib, Iraq — Tears rolled down Iman’s cheeks, her gaze fixed on a reporter’s computer screen that lit up one corner of the dark living room. In front of her were images of the baby she gave birth to three months ago.
Now, almost 8,000 miles separate the young mother and her first-born child, who was flown to Atlanta for treatment of a life-threatening spinal cord defect.
Iman had treasured the tiny girl that doctors in Iraq said would not survive long. She had never imagined she would be separated from her except in death.
Noor al-Zahra, the Iraqi baby discovered by soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team during a raid last month, arrived in Atlanta on Saturday for desperately needed medical care.
Since then, the family home in Abu Ghraib has fallen silent.
Iman said the entire family was grateful to the soldiers who made possible Noor’s treatment. But for Iman, the days are achingly slow; the nights long, lonely and often sleepless from worry.
“I am her mother and I am not with her,” Iman said, her eyes locked on photographs of Noor in her arms and of Noor at Baghdad’s Camp Liberty, on the plane to Atlanta and finally at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
“I wanted so much to go with her to Georgia,” Iman said. Only two adults could be flown out of Iraq with “Baby Nora,” as soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment’s Charlie Company came to call her.
The family decided that Noor’s grandmother, Soad, the matriarch of the family would go along with Haider, the baby’s father. It is customary in more traditional Iraqi households for male relatives to accompany women when they travel.
“I miss everything about her,” Iman said through an interpreter as she wiped her face with a black head scarf. “I miss holding her. I miss her tears. Most of all, I miss her smiles.”
Soad’s sister, Sajda, said she thinks of Noor every time her cellphone rings. The phone’s ringtone is a familiar Arabic melody that mesmerized the baby. When Sajda’s phone rang, Noor would stop crying and smile.
“Our house is empty,” Sajda said.
Noor’s family crammed around the computerized slide show of Noor. Iman clutched the laptop, asking if the photographs could be shown over and over again.
Soad’s daughter Zainab pulled out a camera phone and clicked away at the pictures on the screen. It was the only way for the family to have copies — they don’t have a computer on which to view a photo CD. “When will my baby have her operation?” Iman asked. “When will she come back to me? In two weeks? How many weeks?
“I want everyone to know I love her,” Iman said. “I hope she gets better very soon. I am very happy she is getting treatment. But I am very sad that I cannot see her.”
Doctors at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta have tentatively scheduled Noor’s surgery Monday.
Dr. Roger Hudgins, lead neurosurgeon at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, examined Noor on Tuesday and found her in shape for surgery next week, the hospital said in a statement.
Noor was discharged later Tuesday and will stay with her father and grandmother at the home of an Atlanta host family, until she returns to the hospital for the operation.
During the surgery, Hudgins plans to place the spinal cord down the center of Noor’s back and cover it with muscle and tissue.
It is too early to tell how long Noor and her guardians would have to stay in the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad issued them six-month visas.
Tuesday night, Charlie Company soldiers returned a bag full of Soad’s belongings that she could not take with her when she left for the United States.
First Lt. Jeff Moran, a full-time Guard soldier from Ball Ground, asked Khalaf, Noor’s grandfather, if the family felt its security had been jeopardized. Many Iraqis live in fear of being targeted by insurgents if they are publicly identified as sympathetic to Americans. The full identities of Noor’s family members have been withheld in this report for their protection.
Khalaf said the family is doing fine, even though he said, “everyone here knows about it now.”
Iraqis have been able to watch Noor’s story unfold on CNN and Fox News Channel, both of which have shown footage of the family and interviewed Georgia soldiers and the doctors who examined Noor here.
“I am concerned about their security,” Moran told the interpreter to explain to Khalaf. “And is it OK for us to come back?”
Khalaf said the soldiers were welcome anytime.
“We are very appreciative of what the Americans are doing,” he said. Khalaf said it had been difficult to run the household without Soad and Haider. Soad and her sons run a small grocery shop in the Abu Ghraib market.
“It’s not easy to not have my whole family here,” Khalaf said. “But we will go through any hardship for Noor.”
Staff writer Mark Bixler in Atlanta and The Associated Press contributed to this article.
