[Eleanor]: 668.Contest entries.Drabbles.May 2007

The miracle of birth -- nine months, forty weeks; no matter how you count it -- takes an eternity. The day she first felt that life burgeoning within -- just a flutter, like a butterfly gently brushing across her growing abdomen -- she rejoiced. The reminders became more insistent, now less gentle, more violent, until she could see the movement of feet and head and little fists across her rotund and extended belly. The sore breasts, the swollen ankles, the aching hips; it did not take long for the novelty of pregnancy to wear off. Her first child’s birth could not come soon enough.