The Quickening

Last night was weird. Mae and I had gone to sleep a little after twelve. While it usually takes Mae awhile to doze of, the same cannot be said for me. I am the epitome of sleep. I am the professional sleeper. I sleep any time, anywhere and with complete ease I might add. I'm a hypnotist's dream subject - snap your fingers and I'm out like a light! But enough about me!

Last night, like every other I dozed off quickly enough. I might have slept for a half hour or so when Mae suddenly shrieked out, "My stomach!! It's all bloated!! Help!!" Mae has a flair for the melodramatic. She sounded as though an alien was trying to burst out of her abdomen! I jumped out of bed (and almost out of my skin) in a state of panic. My heart was beating frantically. And I was falling all over myself.

"Honey, what's wrong!? What's wrong!??!" I screamed back.

"My belly!!! Look!! It's bloated on one side!"

I put my hand on her belly and lo and behold, there was indeed a little lump on the left side. It was all so disorienting. I was half awake. It was pitch black in our room. There's a lump on my wife's belly. And she was screaming her head off.

"Is something wrong with Baby?"

"I think it IS Baby", she calmed down a little. "He's pushed himself to the side!"

"What do I do? What do I do?!?? Should I push him back?"

Hahahaha!!! And then we burst out laughing like a couple of hyenas on heat. We realised that this was our first experience of Baby's movement. This was the quickening that we'd read about. And yet nothing that we had read prepared us enough for the actual experience. I put my hand on Mae's belly and I felt Baby's movements. They were a little faint, I suppose due to Baby's size. He is after all only 6 inches long now. But wow, what a feeling! By then the lump has subsided. We then said a little prayer and asked that God kept our little fella safe. And just like that we went back to sleep. Like nothing happened.

There's never a dull moment in the Tan household.