Womb Awakening

There was nothing I could do about it. They said that I was the only one who could carry all five fetuses. These fetuses inside me all have different mothers, and their fathers are to remain anonymous until they successfully make it to full term. Medical technology has come so far that one woman can carry multiple fetuses at once and all they need is a sterile platform to transplant it from one body to another. They chose my body to carry five fertilized eggs because I have been the most reliable host in the quadrant. In the past four years I have delivered eight babies. The doctors had to surgically expand my womb in order to hold these five, even though they were barely zygotes when the transplant happened. The surgery was four months ago, and since then they haven't released me from my isolated quarantine room. I am to stay here until I give birth, with the IV keeping me sedated and hydrated and the machine monitoring my heartrate. Dr. Menage keeps all the hosts restrained and monitored so he can make sure that we don't turn in our resignation early without the desired results.

When I signed up for this project, I thought I was going to be helping families who couldn't have their own children. I knew that pain, and I was willing to help women who couldn't have their own children. What I didn't realize was that I would become a vessel for as many pregnancies as possible, with no concern about success. At first, they did only one at a time. The goal was not that every child made it to full term. The goal is to stick as many fertilized eggs as possible into any suitable host and hope that at least half of them survived. They gradually tried for twins and triplets until I was unfortunately lucky enough to deliver a set of triplets last year. Now, only two months later, they have put five fetuses inside my womb in hopes that I will keep up my reputation of delivering every baby that I am given.

"Hi Maribelle, are you ready for your ultrasound?"

I remain silent as I see the nurse close the door behind her. I will not waste my time with pleasantries in this cell. She's going to do my ultrasound whether I am ready or not.

I see the withered old nurse come in, her eyes glossed over like she is in a trance. She hobbles over to my bedside to read the monitor, and even though my eyes are trained on her she never meets my gaze. My fists clench up beneath the restraints with rage as she hums a melody that seems slightly familiar. Is that Beethoven? This ancient woman is humming Beethoven while I'm tied down to this bed and drugged in this forsaken place just to have an unnatural number of babies come out of me eventually. It takes everything in me to not spit on her wrinkly face as she lifts my gown up to prepare for the ultrasound. She can barely squeeze the tube hard enough to get the cold gel onto my belly. She starts spreading the cold goo, but I don't really feel it. The numbing sensation has become a new normal with Dr. Menage and so many nurses invading my body every day. My belly is so swollen that I can't imagine how it's going to expand any more to accommodate the fetuses as they continue to grow. She bends over slowly to turn on the ultrasound machine on, and after a couple beeps, she brings the transducer up to eye level. She pulls her smudged glasses down and seems to examine the transducer to make sure that it's sterile.

She repositions the handheld reader and gives me the faintest smile as her hand drops hard onto my abdomen. The room is deadly quiet except for the unpleasant sound of sloshing gel. Once she gets a good position, she steadies her hand. I can't tell if her hand is shaking because she's nervous or because she's older than the fossils buried under this building. The sound gradually becomes louder, and I barely hear a constant thrum of heartbeats. They sound unsynchronized and scattered, like a herd of elephants trampling the ground on a distant television.

But I hear them. The nurse moves the beacon and marks each of the five distinct heartbeats on her chart. The sound from the ultrasound intertwines with the sound from my own heart monitor machine, creating a dissonant melody. I guess that is what six hearts beating together sounds like. For a moment, I am in pure astonishment at the five lives that are developing in my womb. And then, a rippling pain seizes my abdomen. Suddenly the room is blinding white with no more shapes or dimensions and my abdomen feels like a pot of boiling acid. I feel my whole body convulsing beneath the restraints and my vision becomes dark and watery. I feel wet, and I regrettably consider that I may have peed myself due to the extreme pain. The warm wetness just makes me scream as I soil myself with no control.

"Maribelle? Oh goodness... Maribelle, can you hear me?" The nurse inquires frantically.

My eyes roll into the back of my head, and I am no longer conscious of anything around me. I only feel the pain of my abdomen and the babies in me raging from suffocation.

Yes, there are five heartbeats in my womb right now. With mine, that made six heartbeats, like six gears turning to keep a machine running. Isn't it just a shame that my heart might give out before I can save the other five?