WASHINGTON — She's a tiny, beautiful light in the darkness: A healthy baby girl born to a D.C. mom struggling with a major health crisis of her own amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Perhaps the most amazing thing is where this miracle happened.
"She's actually awake," said Niya Kight, nursing her 11-day-old baby at her home in Northeast D.C.
She named the little girl "Zen" for the calm she's helped restore to her mom, despite the multiple crises surrounding her birth. "She's so peaceful. She's just what I needed at this point in time," said Kight, holding her daughter close.
Kight found out she had cancer shortly after learning she was pregnant. "I was diagnosed with Stage Two breast cancer on my 31st birthday while ten weeks pregnant," she said. "I had a mastectomy in December and completed four rounds of chemo."
She suspended chemotherapy to protect her fetus.
On May 2, she went into early labor. But her first thought was to her two-year-old son, Lake, and him enjoying his last day as an only child. "And I just didn't want my son to know. I wanted him to feel like it was the best day ever," she said.
She played around with Lake for awhile, something she calls ice hockey in a pan, as well as javelin throwing. They she drove out to her parents' home in Lanham and dropped him off.
She barely made it to her house in Northeast DC. She raced inside and the contractions really hit her. "Just tried to put some cold water on, hoping that would cool me off. I stuck my head in the cold shower."
She'd called her fiance, Ray, on the way home, and he called her neighbor to help until medics could get there.
Jodi Chandler said she said a prayer before walking into the house. "I said, God, please be with me, because I'd never done anything remotely like delivering a baby," said Chandler. "She let out a big shriek, a scream, and said, 'Ms. Jodi, this baby is not going to wait!"
Chandler got Kight into a hallway. "As I was laying her down, I could see the baby's head. She was crowning ... Niya pushed one time, and Zen came out in my arms. And it was so overwhelming. I cried. The baby cried. We were all crying. It was a beautiful event."
Kight said it was incredible when she got to hold Zen for the first time. "It really felt surreal, like 'Did we just do that?'"
She said going through a pandemic, a cancer diagnosis, and an accidental home birth gives her a lot of faith that she'll be a survivor.
"I look at this as my rebirth," she said. Her chemo treatments start next month.
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