Welcome to Gaia! ::

While Will was away in the new city Rakawa sat around for a few minutes and relaxed. She rubbed her belly and said, "I wonder what kinds of children I carry in here. I really still don't know how many I carry despite feeling so big."

She heard a knock at the door which interrupted her pondering and stood up to answer it. Walking over to it she opened it to find herself greeted by a shaman. "Can I help you?" she asked.

The shaman, a woman five years older, nodded and said, "I am Ulala." She removed the hood of a black cloak she was wearing and let Rakawa look into her blue eyes and at the dusty brown hair she had. "I've come to help you put the final tattoos on your body. I heard from your husband William that you were with children when I passed by him recently in the markets."

"Oh," Rakawa uttered as she allowed her to step in the house. "I do need the protection of the animal spirits she said with a smile."

Ulala nodded and pulled out a bone knife, some white dye, and thread from her cloak and said, "I'll use all of this to open up, dye, and close the tattoo areas."

Rakawa sat down on the floor and let the back of her dress drop back as she said, "Feel free to place the tattoos you wish to draw on my back."

Ulala bent down and began her work, quickly working to apply as many tattoos as she could in an hour. She had passed by him in the market a short time ago and had heard that he might be coming back to the house then. To Rakawa's back she applied a hippo for health, a cheetah for running, a camel for thirst, a loin for bravery, a gazelle for jumping, a gorilla for climbing, a monkey for ingenuity, a scarab for toughness, a bat for hearing, a horse for beauty, a sheep for warmth, and a goat for determination.
She would then have all the animals she would need in her animal collection. It would cause her back to become an intricate array of white lines.

She looked at the shaman and said, "Thank you great shaman Ulala," as the last needle pinched her skin together.

"Just wait another month and my handiwork should call upon the giant spirit to come and inhabit your body. The next priestess to be shall be happy I'm sure." The shaman told her this before standing up and exiting the home Rakawa and Will shared. Rakawa could feel her belly throb slightly and rubbed it happily. No matter how big their children got she would always love them.

Rakawa turned around and held her belly as she sat on the floor. "I think I have every tattoo I need." she said with a smile on her face, "Maybe we'll get blessed soon." As she finished her words the tattoos on her back glowed with a white light and as they did her already big belly began to grow even larger. It was to the point that it looked like she had added in what appeared to be another three children to her already unknown number of children.

She gasped and said, "Will, I think we really need to go and see a doctor to see how many children I have in here. I hope that wasn't the one child we wanted more than anything taking over some space in my body now. We barely have enough room in here for our other children as it is."

While in the doctor's office Rakawa lay down on the medical bed provided her and had a special gel applied to her belly. When the telescopic device was applied to her skin she could feel the cool metal chill her body a bit. She looked up at Will and smiled before asking the doctor, "So how bad is it?"

The doctor looked her in the eye and then Will and said as he held the device still, "Well, the ultrasound is detecting six children within you right now Ms. Rakawa, um, did you fill out your medical records?"

The doctor was willing to help people out definitely, but he hated it when new patients came in without filling in everything about themselves on a medical profile. These two though he felt were new patients so he tried his very best to treat them well. "If we don't have that information your information on paper I suggest you do for future notice. I know you probably used to live in the jungle, but medical health is a very complicated thing..."

He sighed and moved his hand on the telescopic device down so that they could see all of their children. The one on the bottom is your smallest child it's a girl and she's about 4.5 pounds and 38 in. long. The second above her is a boy he's five pounds and 41 inches long. You have two twins boys squished in the middle of your abdomen as well they're both six pounds and 42 inches long. The fifth child you have is a girl in the upper right pocket of your uterus who's 43 inches long and seven pounds."

He paused for a moment and voiced, "What I'm very concerned about though is... You last child. I've never seen a baby whether a boy or girl as large as this last child, but she's... almost like a new discovery. Her current weight is off the charts that I use and I can only estimate that a whooping 53 inches long and solid 12 lbs. All the growth this last child has gained is kind of crushing the other children and may potentially make your belly lopsided. I would not recommend heavy exercise at all."

He pulled out a calculator and punched in a few numbers before saying, "I can estimate you've stretched your belly out about 10.8 feet if we were lay your children from head to toe next to each other and have gained a good forty pounds. Any further weight gain is likely to be not good for your health."

"Very good actually." she answered him as she hugged his arm. She was still laying within the bed waiting for him to be ready to go. "I'm not hungry for once and I feel a bit like making... a nest. I don't know why, but I feel like I should have done that earlier than now. Will, we don't have any straw at home do we?"

Rawaka wrapped her hand around his and told him, "Yes, we'll definitely need some. I think a straw bed would be quite nice for all of our children to have when they're born. Just for a short while until we can get them all put into a real bed."

(I think I'll initiate a time skip here if that's okay.)

"I think that's a good idea..." she whispered to him as she tried to keep her dress in place on their way home.
--
Over the next four weeks, Rakawa spent a lot of her time alone taking the straw Will had gathered and wove a giant cradle out of it using skills she had gotten from the jungle. Then she filled it with blankets and sat by it often looking at the giant basket with a smile on her face. She would often rub her belly near it and feel her children move around inside her as she ate the food Will offered her and kept an eye on her body's weight. The doctor had told her to be careful, so she made sure not to eat too much.

One day while sitting near the basket though she felt an even sharper pain than before and her water broke. "WILL!" she cried out. "The children are coming!"

She sat down on the floor heaving and trying to push as she felt strong contractions rush through her body. She really needed and wanted his support. Rakawa could only hope he was neaby as she lay down on her back and groaned.

Rakawa pushed as hard as she could, breathing heavily, as she used all of the energy in her body to help push their children out into the world. It was a very difficult task, but she managed to push out five on her own until she felt an even greater pain from their last child. She was stuck!

Rakawa grit her teeth and pushed even harder even though it felt like her body would snap in two. The pain suddenly subsided and her last child came out into the world crying loudly like her other children. Her brow covered in sweat she looked at Will and said, "I'm too tired to move..." Her body slumped over and she whispered, "Can you name them Will, please, I feel like I'm about to die from exhaustion."

Rakawa's body she shook slightly as she tried to gasp for air and refill her tired lungs. She could barely see over the curve of her fat belly and breasts as she uttered also, "It may be a good idea for me to attempt to feed them too..." They would need to get to know the scent of their mother and her touch.