no baby, don't come out this way!

Baby2 was moving a lot and my belly was stretched weirdly. 

It was so stretched you could almost see right through the skin, as if it was just a thin deflated balloon separating Baby2 and the world outside. 

I could even see Baby2's arms and legs pushing against the belly - and the arms and legs were so skeletal. It shocked me to see how bony the baby was. To another person, it would have been a scene out of a horror movie. But to me, that was my baby.

I kept telling myself that's coz the flesh  is still forming, that by the time Baby2 comes out, it wouldn't look skeletal anymore.

All the while Baby2's limbs kept pressing against the belly, stretching the skin so thin ...  it eventually gave way.

"Oh no! I want natural birth! Does this mean it's a caesarean?" I thought to myself.

I applied pressure to the tears that were starting to appear, as if trying to stop Baby2 from forcing her way out. "Once she stops moving, i'll get myself to hospital."

Then i saw Munch, and i gesticulated for him to take a look.

"I think we better pack the documents and get to the hospital!" I told him, "How? Do you think she's gonna come out now?"

Munch stared at the skeletal arms punching holes in my tummy. He stared at the blood on my clothes.

"Eeeeeee" he said, and hosed me down with a showerhead from a distance. (Grrrrrrrrrrr!)

But it seems he did the right thing. Soon after, Baby2 stopped her rabid attempts at exiting my belly. And with the blood washed off, i saw that in spite of the bony arms protruding right out of the belly skin, all that remained was just a perforated line.

"I gotta start preparing to go to the hospital," I told myself, and proceeded to pack my staffroom desk, stopping halfway to chat with a colleague who was moody and crying.

On my way out of the school, the students were having morning assembly, and i noticed 2 foreign students who were chatting while the national anthem was being sung.

And i stopped to speak with them.

"It's not my country, it's not my national anthem," one of them retorted.

"Imagine it's at the Olympics, and your national anthem is being sung. And everyone who's not from your country are chatting away, as if it meant nothing. How would you feel?"

i was seething inside.

Then Bee Leng handed me 2 thin folders and told me that i had to make sure those were in order before i go off for maternity leave. She had a new haircut - shoulder length, sleek and straight, and she looked good. 

In the folders were some crumpled math worksheet.

The End.

***

this is the second time i dreamt that Baby2 forced her way out through my abdomen.

The first time, she just poked her arm right out, right through my dress. i was at a liposuction clinic (??!?) and juliana was a nurse there (??!?)

No Baby2, please don't come out this way...

***

Preggies sure have weird dreams.