Look at Me One More Time

Crafted With Love

"We'll need to prepare a room for them," that's what Ben said when I mentioned about my parents coming to visit.

I have not thought of that.

Well, back in Malaysia, it's common to have an extra room for guests. Sometimes, family members may show up at your front door and it's simply impolite to not offer them to sleep for the night.

The young adults often move and work in the bigger cities, leaving behind their parents and smaller siblings back at the hometowns. So when these family members come for a visit, it means they actually traveled and came from a distance. You must be an awful person to just greet and tell them to leave.

I just thought Ben knew all this since we've been married for a while and he himself moved down to Sintra from Porto to manage his late grandma's apartment on Airbnb.

"I'm sorry, I didn't consider that," I said.

"Sorry for what?" Ben asked.

"Sorry for inviting my parents without consulting with you first?" I suggested, with that worried and confused look on my face.

Ben laughed. "Are you kidding? Of course you'd invite your parents. It's their first grandchild."

My eyes didn't blink at all, waiting for him to keep on with his comforting words.

"Look, the room where Dores was staying is a mess," he added. "And the baby's room, there's already a crib taking the whole space. So I'm thinking of clearing the messy room for your parents, by moving the stuff to the basement."

"Uhuh.." I was still staring at him, telling him to keep on in my mind.

"My issue is that I'll need a free day to do it since I don't want you to carry all those things on your own," he finally said, and quickly scrolled up and down the screen of his phone. "Well hmm.. maybe I can shift my Wednesday schedule to Thursday.."

While he was mumbling things to himself, I clung to him. "Obrigados!" I said, which is a mix of Portuguese obrigado and thanks in English. It has become a habit and Ben doesn't seem to mind.

Yes, the baby's room does look incomplete which just shows we both couldn't find time to fill it up. Some of the baby stuff are costly too and probably cheaper if bought online via Amazon.

I just realized that Ben has never spoken about his workload to me, probably because he doesn't want to sound like complaining.

It must be tough, taking over an established company. And no matter how small the business is, he still has to manage like three or four employees. That doesn't include the trips to the auditor, taxes and whatever else financial issues that he has to deal all by himself.

Actually, since I took a break from work, I have stopped being curious about his work too. How silly of me. We used to talk about work while having dinner but now, we only talk about the stuff I'm up to these days and baby-related topics.

Oh, and yeah, we talked a lot about baby names. In the end, he simply told me to just list down whatever baby girl names I have in mind and we'll select one when the time comes.

Having too much to think of is not good for health, so it's wiser to make a list of all the things I want to do, and start doing the easiest ones. I should also tick off worrying about my husband's work because I'm sure he's got everything under control.

I also proofread my drafts and I am excited about publishing them chapter by chapter later on. So, after saving all in Word files, I shut down my laptop and tried to get some sleep next to Ben who was already snoring since a while.

Strangely, it was almost 2AM and I did not feel sleepy at all. My skin got sweaty and I was becoming uncomfortable with my own odor as I stirred left and right on the bed. I got up again to take a quick shower.

I took time to clean under my nails and scrub my feet. I put on the pajamas I just folded today because I like the smell of fresh laundry and tried to sleep again.

At 5AM, I started squirming in discomfort again, causing Ben to wake up. He cuddled me close because he thought I was having a bad dream.

No, I wasn't.

Half an hour later, I had to rush to the bathroom because I felt my panties were wet like I just peed in bed. I was shocked to find pale streaks of blood on them.

"Ben!" I called from inside there. The was no answer, of course, as Ben had gone back to sleep.

I ran to the room and shook his body. "Hey, wake up!"

He didn't wake up.

I slapped his shoulder and he immediately opened his eyes, panicking, "What happened?"

"There's blood on my panties!" I exclaimed.

"There's blood on your panties?!" He was really loud. "Are you hurt?!"

"No, but I think we should go check."

He didn't take long to grab the prepared baby bag with all my clothes and personal items into the car and drove me to the hospital.

The due is still in two weeks, so the baby shouldn't be coming yet, right?

In fact, the gynaecologist told us to go home first because apparently there was no opening. Just in case, they let me use an empty bed just so they could monitor the baby's heartbeat.

I couldn't sleep. Neither could Ben. I have never seen him this scared before. I don't even know what was on his mind.

And suddenly, there was a sharp pain at my back and below my belly, almost like when I was having period pain and going to pass a bowel movement at the same time.

I squeezed Ben's arm and he held my face. "Is everything okay?"

"I'm scared," I said. It was an undescribable pain and I wasn't sure of what to do. "I can't do this."