Uzo Aduba and her husband, filmmaker Robert Sweeting, welcomed their daughter, Adaiba Lee Nonyem, on November 30, 2023. Uzo is currently filming a Shonda Rhimes series called The Residence. She also just released a book called The Road Is Good: How a Mother’s Strength Became a Daughter’s Purpose. It pays tribute to her mother, who passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2021. Uzo recently did an interview with People to talk about her new book, being a new mom, and remembering her mother.
Those sleepless nights: “People say it, and I have seven nieces and nephews, but you don’t know how little you sleep in the beginning until you experience it. In college, I could do sleepless nights. It’s not the same. I wouldn’t be surprised if The Art of War, it’s used [as a] tactic, sleep deprivation. I understand why that is a crime against humanity. It is just on another level.”
Time flies, baby: “I didn’t know how fast it goes. Maybe because [with] my nieces and nephews, there’s a level of expectation that I’m going to miss stages because I’m not sitting there watching. But I’m here every day watching, and it goes so fast. I can’t believe some of the things. I don’t know when I thought they happened, but I know I did not think I thought they happened in this timeframe with this speed.” The Emmy winner calls that phenomenon both “beautiful and hard.”
It really does go by so fast: “Those parents who are on the other side, where their kids are out of the house or have gotten married and had their grandchildren themselves, and they say, ‘It goes so fast.’ I’m like, ‘I think I may understand a little bit of what you mean because I can’t believe we’re here already. It’s the hard work of being so happy that we are here and letting her continue to grow and develop in that independent way, and then I’m like, ‘But don’t grow up too fast.’ You want to hold on.”
She misses her mom: In her new memoir, Aduba, remembers her late mom Nonyem, who died in November 2021 from pancreatic cancer, and talks about the influence her mom had on her throughout her life. Aduba wishes her mother could’ve been there for her pregnancy.
“When I was pregnant, I would have strokes of sadness because I was like, ‘Man, of all the moments I wish she could be here for, I wish it was this. I was also really sad because I was nervous that I didn’t have what I thought everybody else had, [which] was their mom to show you how to do this. I felt cheated that I wasn’t going to have those things on full display to help me be a great mother to my daughter.”
She’s turning into her mom: “I’m wildly surprised with every day how much of Nonyem lives literally inside of me. How some of the things that she said to me, my sibling growing up come out of me. My mom is famous for going, ‘No, no, no,’ when she talking to you. The first time it came out of my mouth, I was like, ‘Who said that?’ I promise you, I never said this before.” Unconsciously borrowing that phrase from her mom made Aduba “really happy” because it showed her that our loved ones “never leave us.”
It’s the circle of life: “Almost like The Lion King, they live in you. They really do. I am getting all the wonderful stuff that I’m supposed to hand down because she poured so heavily into me and left enough for me to be able to pour into her. So I’m thankful for that.”
What she says about sleep…I totally get that! Before you have your first baby, the one thing that everyone always tells you is something to the effect of, “Enjoy your sleep now because you’ll never get any again!” That lack of sleep when you have a baby is like no other, and that’s because you can’t just go through life sleepy or hungover or whatever, and then make up for it the following night. There is no “good night’s sleep” the following night! My older son had ear infections and did not sleep from four months until he had his second set of tubes and his adenoids removed at 23 months old. We were so tired.
And, oh, my heart breaks for her when she talks about how much she missed her mother during her pregnancy and misses her now as a new mother. I hope she has a wonderful female support system in place. I get what she means when she says that her mom comes out sometimes while she’s parenting. There are things, both good and bad, that I remember my mother doing when I was a kid and I’ll sometimes find that I’m doing it, too. My husband does it as well, and the wild thing is that both of our parents will call us out on turning into them. Parenting never ends.
Photos credit: Roger Wong/INSTARimages, Robin Platzer / Twin Images / Avalon, Faye’s Vision/Cover Images
I really like her.
Can relate to missing her Mom, little to no sleep, etc. No idea she has a book coming out, will take a look.
So true on the sleep deprivation. Before I had my baby, I thought I’d be able to handle it because I’ve dealt with bouts of insomnia my entire life. Nnnnnope. It really is a whole different level when you’re on no sleep and 100% responsible for keeping a tiny, helpless human alive and your hormones are whack-a-doo. My sleep got so broken that I began to not be able to sleep at all. I hallucinated. I got post partum depression so bad that I ended up hospitalized for a week – in the hospital they helped me re-learn how to fall asleep. It’s no joke. Lean on to whatever supports you can find.
The newborn phase is so hard and I feel like society expects us moms to just be compeltely in love with everything about having a baby but it’s SO hard. If you are reading this and are in the thick of it or about to experience it, I promise, it really does get better.
I love that you said this. My younger one just turned 12 and it does get better. It’s always hard, but it’s wonderful, too. New moms, take people up on their offers to help and put them to work. I would love to cook a meal or do a load of laundry or run errands for any new parents in my life. Newborns are HARD!! But a day will come when they finally sleep that first 5-6 hour stretch, and you’ll slowly adjust back, too.
I got so little sleep during the first three months. It was brutal.