Paint Me In Trust - Tyren

chapter eighteen

The next day, Lauren sat next to her sister who scrolled through her phone while Lauren watched. Everyone was arriving for the gender reveal and Lauren got more anxious by the minute. She was more than ready to finally figure out the gender, she had even agreed to take Taylor and Jailynn baby clothes shopping with her the next day.

She laid her head on Taylor's shoulder and closed her eyes. "You okay?" Her sister asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay, chicken. Just a little tired." Lauren told her as she rubbed her visibly moving stomach. It had been like that all day, light kicks and flutters to her stomach. Lauren loved the feeling of it and it kept her calm, but she didn't like that everyone could see it moving. At her perspective, it looked weird and unnatural. Her mom had assured that it didn't look weird, and everyone knew that babies move in the womb but Lauren couldn't shake the feeling.

She also didn't enjoy the fact that people would come up and try to touch her stomach without asking her. She didn't mind when people rubbed her stomach, she found it soothing, but some of her friends would come up and touch without asking. It made her feel defensive over her baby.

Lauren sighed and snuggled into her sister and little more. "Take a nap, Lo."

"No, I'll miss my own child's gender reveal." Lauren joked.

"No you won't." Taylor laughed. "I'll wake you up when everyone's here."

"I'm okay Tay, I'll just take a nap later." Lauren assured her. Taylor sighed and looked down at her older sister. Her stomach was moving and Taylor found it fascinating.

"Can I touch?" She asked. Lauren looked opened her eyes and looked up at her, not really sure what Taylor meant. When Lauren realized that she meant she wanted to feel the baby she nodded and lied her head back down. At least she asked before touching, Lauren thought to herself.

"Why is it moving so much?"

"I don't know, excitement maybe?" Lauren said.

"Can you feel it?"

"Yes."

"What does it feel like?" Taylor asked.

"A bunch of strong butterflies. Last night at like 4 in the morning it had the hiccups. Felt kind of weird, like popcorn was popping inside of me." Lauren told her.

"Why were you awake at 4 in the morning?" Taylor asked as she pushed down gently with two fingers, earning a bit of a stronger kick from the inside.

"I couldn't get comfy. I usually sleep on my stomach but I'm too big to do that now."

"So you didn't sleep at all? No wonder you're tired."

Lauren laughed a little. "No, I got sleep, just not very much of it. Maybe like two or three hours."

Just then, Dinah came up beside Lauren and plopped down on the couch, scaring the shit out of the two girls. "What about two or three hours of sleep?" She asked.

"Well, thanks for the mini heart attack, D. I appreciate it." Lauren joked. "I was telling her that sleep is nonviable with a huge stomach."

"Sleep on your side, duh." Dinah said. "Problem solved."

"Wow, thank you Dinah. Who would have thought of that? I certainly didn't." Lauren joked.

"Oh shut up, I'm just trying to help. Can I touch too?" She asked and Lauren nodded her head. Dinah squealed a little. "It's about time the kid finally starts moving. I was beginning to think it was just a food baby." She joked. Lauren shook her head and removed Dinah's hand from her stomach.