Last night I had children. Laying on flat steel hospital table with blue
surgical cloths over me, and a pillow under my head, they made an incision
in my belly and pulled out my babies. They laid white tape along either
side of the incision, from belly button to sternum. Then sealed it with
another piece of tape down the middle.
"Aren't you going to stitch that up?"
"No, we use tape." Said the man to the right. Covered
in surgical gowns and mask, I couldn't see his face.
Time passed. Doctors left. It was me on the table with nurses milling
to the left. More time passed. It had been half an hour and I still hadn't
seen my babies. I couldn't take it any more. "Where are my babies?!
Let me see my babies!" The nurses moved and talked quickly
amongst themselves. I looked to the left and saw the doctor walking past
the open door to the room. "Where are my babies?! Let me see my
babies!"
"You've seen your babies already."
"No I haven't. Bring me my babies!"
"You've seen them. You held them in front of that mirror."
To my right was a full length mirror on a door to the bathroom. A friend,
I think it was randir, sat on a chair between me and the mirror nodding
in agreement with me. I looked then turned my gaze back to the doctor.
"I have not. I haven't been off of this bed!" I started to
sit up and the tape above the incision turned deep red with the blood
that welled up beneath it. "Bring me my babies!"
I yelled at him. I would rip this hospital apart room by room to get to
them. Fuck the blood. And they knew I was serious, knew that nothing
would stop me from seeing my babies and I would rip right through them in
the process.
And then I was laying back with my babies in my arms. They were barely
larger then kittens, but perfectly formed and healthy. They were my babies.
I thanked the universe as I held them. I wasn't supposed to be able
to have babies, but I did, and I was so thankful.
The dream jumped forward in time to the next afternoon. I was still in
the hospital but it was more like a college. The doctors had my babies.
I didn't know why, but I knew that their intentions were good an I would
have them soon. A male friend (randir again?) in front of me held my hand
and led me through a door into and through a classroom filled with people
sitting on the floor at the far end of the room. Teachers had drawn pentagrams
in circles, and pentangles with white chalk on the black floor. Magical
script surrounded them. They were teaching but they didn't know what they
were doing, like Christians describing prayers to Allah. They had no
concept of the effects of their action. But, this time, they were harmless.
The end of the room had inadvertently been turned into a holy
place and my friend and I bowed, each in our own way, as we passed around
them and continued into a small room on the other side of the far wall.
We waited, quietly talking words I never heard. A girl came into the
room with a baby wrapped in a small crocheted pouch that hung from her neck,
only the head peeking out. It was my baby. Why did she have my baby?!
"Where did you get her?" I asked.
"There were two of them in a plastic box on the table in the other
room."
I flew through the doors the first
baby would be safe with her for the moment. More blood welled under my tape
but I didn't care. On the table was a large, translucent, purple, Tupperware
container with nine compartments and my baby in one. I grabbed my baby from
in still feeling the panic in my veins, still shaking. I unwrapped her and
held her nude form under my shirt, along the bottom of my breast for warmth.
"How could they do this?! What is wrong with these people?!" I
stormed to the nurses station and started to yell and shout at them
but it had no effect. They just ignored me. I yelled at doctors. I yelled
at nurses, but there was no reaction.
I went back and gathered up my other baby.
Again, the dream skipped forward in time. The next morning I was home
in bed. In a large house with white walls and hardwood floors. There was
a smile on my face, and somewhere in the background of the house, in another
room, was a man I cared about. Not a husband, or a lover, but someone who
was very close to me. He would be bringing in my babies soon.
I laid back in the clean baby blue sheets and smiled. My babies would be
here soon.
I had never breast fed them. Two days into their life and they had never
had their mothers milk. "Could I even do it?" I wasn't
supposed to be able to have babies, could I even feed them? I reached down
and suckled my own breast, hoping to get it started for them, but
nothing came out. Maybe it was something only they would know how to start
right.
I would be with my babies soon. They could try. I would be with my babies
soon.
For those of you who don't know. I have no chance
of ever being able to have a child IRL.