Dream a Little Dream

I first started having pregnancy dreams shortly after Mr. Stick and I got together. They were pretty infrequent and never made it past the "BFP" stage, and for a long time they used to fill me with anxiety because I didn't feel ready for motherhood yet. I would always wake up relieved.

After we started TTC, I would still infrequently get these dreams and wake up terribly disappointed. The last such dream I remember having was the summer of 2009, and the dream had progressed to the point where a friend of mine was sending hand-me-downs from her twins(!) to me.

I knew that things weren't going well when suddenly I stopped dreaming of BFP's and started dreaming of BFN's. It wasn't bad enough that I had to experience disappointment in my real, waking life; apparently my subconscious decided it needed to remind me of my barrenness in my dreaming life as well.

A few months ago, I finally dreamt of a BFP again, but then after that came the miscarriage dreams - only two of them. I couldn't even blog about them - they haunted me terribly to the point where I wondered if it was even worth getting pregnant if I was only going to experience the kind of pain that my dreams merely hinted at.

And then last night, I dreamt I was pregnant again. Not just a BFP - I was in the hospital on my due date, waiting for my contractions to begin.

The sad thing about this dream is that IF had pervaded me so much to the point where I still didn't believe I was pregnant. My waistline was thick, but only a few inches larger than my current size, and I had gained only ten pounds. The nurse was debating whether to induce me, and I was arguing with her that I needed an ultrasound to confirm a heartbeat because I wasn't sure if I was pregnant, and I d*mn well knew that even if I was, I was too early along to even consider giving birth. I started crying, and I told her that nothing was even moving inside me, and this all seemed like a really cruel joke.

So she guides me into the ultrasound room, wands me, and I see a big smile come over the nurse's face. I look over (and remember folks that this is a dream), and it's not just a 3-D ultrasound, but a holographic representation of my baby. She's a girl, and she looks more like a 6-9 month old than a newborn - she has hair, her eyes are squeezed shut, and she is...beautiful. Not just beautiful in the "all babies are beautiful" sort of way but quite literally, physically beautiful in the way that I automatically think, "I'm going to be terrified the day she turns 15."

I worry about my lack of weight gain, and the nurse tells me that there is at least 15 pounds worth of baby and fluids in me (which is strange that she gave me a combined weight as opposed to the baby's weight), so I'm going to be just fine. (Which at that point, vain old me goes, "Wow - I won't even need to lose baby weight!")

Then we leave the room, and I see that a whole bunch of friends and family have come into the hospital to show their support and, in their words, "distract me" from all the pain I am about to experience. But I welcome the idea of the pain because I am happy and not scared anymore.

Waking up sucked big time. It took me a few moments to even realize that I had been asleep and dreaming, and all I wanted to do was crawl into that dream again and see the whole thing through.

I'm glad that my subconscious is feeling hopeful, even if the rest of me isn't quite there yet. And maybe this will sound pathetic, but a part of me is really happy that I know a little now what it feels like to really be pregnant...even if those feelings are just shadows of the real experience...and even if it was only in my dreams.