Vig: Second Time Around
Milani flopped over in the bed, feeling ungainly and very large. She was positive she was bigger this time around, that the baby was bigger too. Had to be, given how awkward she felt all the time. The slow pull of muscles gathering tugged along her sides, made her lower back start to throb dully, then died off. It was just strong enough to interrupt her sleep. Just strong enough to make her think that this time it was starting. Every time, it stopped, petered out after enough lackadaisical tugs to fool her again, but not few enough to let her sleep.
She was getting really tired and very irritable from lost sleep, irritable enough that Delifa and Madilla’s calm patience and explanations about pro-whatsit labor were starting to annoy her. How could they remain so calm in the face of this nagging, annoying pain and constant lack of sleep? She groaned softly and pushed upright, sat at the edge of the bed breathing in and out slowly before even trying to haul herself to her feet. Once there, the baby’s weight shifted suddenly and she had to reach hastily for the chamber pot to avoid soaking the ground.
“Thanks, kid,” she muttered to her abdomen and was rewarded with a sharp kick to the underside of her lungs that took her breath away. Grumbling, she paced out into the other room and poked at the fire to renew its heat and flames, poured water into the kettle and swung it over the heat. She curled up on the couch and rested her head against its arm, watching the play of flames in the hearth and listened to the wood crackling.
She woke with a start to the whistle of the kettle several minutes later, with her back tugging again and heaved herself upward to go swing the kettle off of the flames. With the tea box in hand, she squatted down with a mug to mix up the brew carefully and stayed there as it steeped, hands resting atop knees. It was more comfortable to ‘sit’ this way and easier to get up for that matter.
Millie ran her hand slowly over the curve of her distended belly, felt the tightening of muscles as her back throbbed again and sighed softly. There were two more weeks to go by her count and these early contractions were probably not going to stop. She hoped it would be a straightforward labor, or she feared she’d be too tired to get through it from this constant off and on jump-starting her body was doing.
“Enough already, just rest a little,” she told the baby who was kicking again, little feet and hands and knees and elbows and probably butt, bumping out the sides of her abdomen.
She waited a little longer, then picked up her tea, retreated to the couch to drink it, and fell into an exhausted sleep there, curled up on her side as the fire dwindled low again within the quiet confines of her quarters.