Close Encounters

I had a dream this week that I was abducted by aliens. 

In the back yard at midnight on a clear, dark night, I could see the horizon very clearly.  Stars were pinpricks of light that did nothing to outshine a large, hovering orb in the west.  Five times the size of the moon.    Immediately, my dreaming mind recognized it as a sattelite.  Its lights blinked and twittered in a series of mesmerising patterns, and I could make out a large H on its front.  It floated slowly up, then down towards the land, then -- faster than I would have thought possible for a sattelite -- it raced downard beyond the horizon.  Dancing out of my eyesight to other latitudes.

But it had only been the bait.  For a second later, while I stared at the now empty horizon, a ship of sorts settled above my head, and...I was up.  Gone.  Abducted and...

Strangely anxious.  Not afraid, just anxious.  What in the world (not in the world...) was about to happen?

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4:39 PM

I sit in ballet practice with one hand over my abdomen.  It's twisting and contorting and bulging with regularity, like the baby inside wants to dance, too.  I peek around at the other parents, sure that one or all of them -- because I'm just that important -- are staring at my freely moving belly.  At times, I straighten and gasp under my breath because a foot is trying unsuccessfully to break through to the world outside.  Where it can finally stretch and kick without resistance. 

I rub at what I assume to be a heel, and it melts back into ambiguity.  Relief.

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12:37 AM

I'm on my left side, waking suddenly and angrily.  I've only been asleep a few hours, and was so hoping I'd be able to rest longer between bathroom breaks tonight.  Justin is steady and warm in front of me.  The nerve of him; sleeping while I suffer.  I impatiently jiggle his arm -- the one closest to me -- and push against it until he makes a fist and flexes his muscles.  (Even in his sleep, he's helpful and kind.  Which somehow irritates me in all my midnight grumpiness.)  I use his arm as a lever to grunt and groan my way into an upright position, swivel my legs -- so slowly -- to the edge of the bed, and sit there for a moment, willing myself not to wet the bed before I can guarantee my balance and strength are both stable enough to help me up. 

My muscles are half-asleep and half-spasmodic.  This is ridiculous.  

Two hours later, the cycle repeats.

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10:18 AM

I am overcome with the need to speak freely at the grocery store.  And to a near stranger -- the cashier I see almost weekly -- I begin telling the story of my dilation and effacement.  Her eyes are surprised and a little entertained: who reveals such intimate details with one so far removed from the situation?!  Kindly, she doesn't seem to mind.  Must be the camaraderie of mothers everywhere.  So when I say I mean, unless they're going to reach up in there and pull out a slip of paper that has the actual date and time of this baby's arrival -- like a fortune cookie! -- I don't really know what a pelvic exam accomplishes, other than to make me crazy!

I laugh at my own joke.  There are people behind me in line.  I avoid their eyes as I waddle towards the exit with my cart full of comfort food, because...did all of that really just come out of my mouth? 

It absolutely did.  And I will tell it again to the next person who is so unfortunate as to be in my path.

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So the concensus is in. 

I have, in all truth, been abducted by aliens.  It's the only logical explanation.