Saturday, March 5, 2011

Half Nightmare, Half Memory

I just cried myself awake a second ago, after having the worst dream of my adult life. I didn't know if I wanted to post this, but I knew I had to at least write it down before I forgot. And then I thought, why not? My blog is supposed to be about me, and if nobody wants to read about this nightmare, they can feel free to skip it. I'm okay with that.

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We all know I have crazy insane baby fever, and I love that about myself, but for whatever reason, I had the strangest baby related dream I've ever even heard of.

It starts with me riding a bus home, I'm not sure why I'm coming home (or why home is my grandmother's old house). I try to remember, but I can't. I'm just riding along, listening to Laura Bell Bundy, crocheting my fingers off while talking to some girl who just had a baby last week. I'm glad for her, but a little hurt that I don't have my own little bundle to go home to.

Then I get to my stop, and climb out of my seat, and off the bus, almost running to the little house with yellow siding and about seven, broken down cars in the yard. I open the side door and walk in, yelling for my grandmother.

And then something weird happens, it switches to this kind of reoccuring dream I've had since my grandmother got diagnosed with alzheimer's and I learned what that meant - that eventually she'd forget all of us. And at this point in my dream, she has. So she asks me, accusingly, what my name is and why I just RAN up her driveaway and invited myself into her house. I tell her I don't exactly know why I'm running to this house, but that I needed to. She asks my name, and  for whatever reason, I say what my mother says in every dream I've had of my grandmother - "It doesn't matter what my name is. You can call me anything, as long as you don't call me late for supper!"

And my grandmother howls with laughter and returns to sweeping the floor with a kid broom (a toy I had when I was younger, that I would play with at my grandmother's. The best thing about her house during my "sweeping" stage is that she never swept the floors completely. She swept her dust under the rug so there was always a LOT to sweep when I went over there.)

I look around then, trying to remember why I'm here, and my sister comes out of the back room, carrying a screaming baby, and suddenly I remember why I was coming home - because my baby was here. Because I had gone somewhere and was returning home to him.

My sister sets him in my arms, and I look down - he's calm then, and looking around, at ease in my arms. I smile and play with his little nose. He doesn't look like my husband or me, he looks like my nephew Gabe. He's tiny, and I don't know why because I don't smoke, and my nephew Gabe was born with a low birth weight because my sister smoked the whole time, and my sister's tiny. "I'm not tiny and I don't smoke! Why is he so small?" I start screaming. "Why would I do this to him?!" and my sister is holding my forearms, calming me down, saying it's not my fault. So I stop yelling, I cry a little.

And then my mother is suddenly there, calming me down as well. Telling me I'll wake the baby, who is sleeping now.. I carry him into the living room (which looks JUST LIKE the living room at my grandmother's house, but with my current living room furniture also jammed into it).  I plop myself down on her couch, and try to bottle feed the baby. He won't drink it, and I remember that I wanted to breast feed. Then I try to remember giving birth, the hospital, and of course, telling the doctor I want to breast feed. But I can't. I can't remember any of it - not the birth, not the hospital. I can't remember any second of my son's life before I got to my grandmother's and had him placed in my arms.

But I can remember being sweaty, and bloody. I can remember some kind of pain, but I'm not at the hospital - I'm in a dark room, alone. Nobody's there. And I'm not pregnant. I'm not giving birth.


"I can't remember anything about your life!" I say to the baby, cooing almost. He giggles a little and then his gums and nose start to bleed. And I look at him, puzzled for a second - what do I do?

I yell for my mom, worried as all hell that my baby is going to die. When I ask her what's going on, she assures me it's a genetic defect - which is why the doctor decided to give me these drugs that would make me infertile.

At that, I lose it. I look down at my baby and I feel nothing but rage. I think about my husband, and I want to kill him, because this genetic defect has no history on MY side of the family! And then I start to cry, softly at first, but then it gets louder.

and louder.

and louder.

And then I'm awake, crying, hoping I don't wake my husband and explain why I'm crying. I'd rather tell him later, after my eyes are dry, that I'm terrified of birth defects and disorders and they're one of the few reasons I don't want a baby - because I can't stop asking myself, could I handle it? Would I go crazy? Would I resent my husband, my child, or myself if it ever happened?

And the biggest question of all: why am I having baby nightmares?

3 comments:

  1. I have been reading this once a day since you posted it, and I waited until now to comment on it because.. well.. I don't really know why..

    Anyways,
    I think I have the same fear about birth defects. I would do anything to be married, and start planning for a baby, but there's something inside of me that thinks "What if"

    But what gets me out of the what if mode, is the fact that yes, it IS possible that my future son or daughter will have a birth defect. But it wouldn't be my fault. If you or I were to become pregnant, and did EVERYTHING in our powers to keep that baby healthy, and safe inside of us, and something does happen.. well, there's not much you can say about it.

    I don't know what I would do if my future baby had any birth defects, so I can't really say anything to that effect.

    What I do know is that you are a loving person, and that you would love and care for that baby like nobody's business. And that's good enough. Hell, that's GREAT. There are so many people that don't care for their children who have defects, and I know you would take care of that child beyond everyone's "expectations" of what you should do.

    Keep your chin up (:
    You will be a wonderful mother one day, either sooner or later, but I know that you will be awesome (:

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  2. Aww, I love you mucho mucho bueno for saying so! I think I'll make a great mother too, I just don't know if I could handle it. Blargh. I think though, when you have a baby, you can handle it. You think you might not be able to, but that's just because you haven't transformed into mother lion, ya know?

    Mm. I can't wait for babies. hah.

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