The Power of Suggestion

I dreamt that I fell asleep while reading a book about giving birth naturally without discomfort. In my dream I realized that I could feel griffin's head way down in my abdomen, and that I could actually feel his little ears quite perfectly through my skin. It was amazing! So I played with his (very cute) ears for a while, just rubbing them and talking to him, and eventually I woke up, or so I thought. My mind messes with me this way quite often when I'm sleeping, but I never manage to catch on while it's happening.

So I was laying there, still dreaming but thinking I was awake, thinking how sad it was that I couldn't actually feel him, that it had clearly just been a dream, when I reached down and discovered that (wow!) I really could feel him! I realized then, though, that I'd never felt him nearly so low, and started to wonder if perhaps I was going to have a very early baby. After massaging his ears for a while to reassure him that we'd both be fine and that we should relax and let things happen, I decided to get up and go to the bathroom.

I stood up and found that I was leaking fluid. Luckily my Mom and a random female cousin/aunt who doesn't really exist were standing in the hallway outside my room. Now at this point, a truly conscious me would probably stop in her tracks and wonder why I was in my childhood home, and who this other female was. But in my dream (since I clearly was still dreaming) I thought nothing of it.

I walked over to them, and calmly told my mom that I thought that I might be having an early baby. She calmly said something like "oh shit, and with company here" and suggested that I should go into the bathroom and check to see if it really was amniotic fluid. In order to get into the bathroom, I had to unplug a cord that they had just rigged across the hallway in order to blow cold night air in to where the aunt/cousin was staying. This, of course, because in that house when I was younger we did not have air conditioning. It was installed just before we left Michigan and moved to TN.

Anyway, I went into the bathroom, and discovered that yes, indeed, he was coming down already and my water had broken. I was surprised, of course, but very calm, and attributed it all to the relaxed anticipation that I was feeling as a result of the book on birthing in comfort. I thought to myself that the power of suggestion truly was very strong, and woke up (this time for real) feeling very happy and secure.

No, I can't massage Griffin's ears. But I'm looking forward to the day when I can. For now, I'm going to make myself a cheese sandwich and go back to bed.

Dreaming with Deadlines

"Realistic" dreams while pregnant crack me up. There I'll be chatting to someone or other, and my dream self will feel the need to tell them that I'm X weeks pregnant. Then I'll gesture down to my belly, which is flawlessly sized exactly as my physical one is currently. Or, someone will try to plan to do something with me for late April. "Sorry," I'll say in my dream, "but Griffin's due on the 19th so I'd be surprised if I am able to make it to that."

Lest you determine that I have a very literal mind, the same subconscious produces dreams in which I try to fit a cloth diaper on a little Griffin the size of a peanut.

Getting a Nice Stretch

Life is good. There really isn't much to report on the pregnancy front, but we're having fun anticipating having a little baby boy in the house. It's all so exciting just to contemplate. Skippy is moving so much now that I feel him consistently throughout my waking hours. Mombi somehow always knows just where to put her hand to feel the next big kick. She and Skippy are going to be such a duo!

Apparently he's quite active during my sleep, too: Last night I dreampt that he gave a huge kick and stretched out to full length, and my belly took on the shape of his front side, all the way from his profile on my left side to his feet popping out on my right. Then he decided (in my dream) that he wanted to come out and hang around with us for a while, and suddenly he was there, perfectly formed and fully grown and super cute. He suffered his first "mommies don't know everything" disillusionment almost immediately, though, when we told him that we had no idea how to get him back inside me. Still, his immediate needs were met (he claimed to have come out because he was hungry) and it was a very happy visit all around. What a good baby we have!

Things are moving...

...both figuratively and literally!

Mombi and I have both felt Skippy moving, so there's something new to think about, at least. Mainly, it's just a waiting time now until next Wednesday when we will (hopefully) find out if we're having a boy or a girl. It'll be standing-room-only in the sonogram room, since my mom and sister are going to be there for it along with Mombi and me.

I think we've finally got our child's potential names decided, so that's a plus. No decision yet on when we'll tell the world, though, since we may change our minds again in the next five months. I doubt it, but then again I thought we had them decided for sure before I even got pregnant, and they're totally different now than they were then.

So once we know the answer to the girl/boy question, that'll give us a much stronger basis for visualizing and imagining what the future will hold. Until then, there's not much we can do to prepare other than talk to my belly (or dance with it, in Mombi's case) and stay well rested and fed.

Speaking of which, the food dreams continue. Last night I drempt that I was helping to clean up after a huge corporate potluck. (For those of you who know where I work, the one I was dreaming about was not the same as the one we had on Thursday!) Anyway, I got there just as it was time to clean up, and so I was stuffing my pockets and loading my arms with all the remaining food that I could carry, including a bunch of fancy european chocolate that was melted in its wrappers because someone had set it out right next to the coffee maker. That was some of the saddest ferero rocher chocolate I've ever seen. The ones in those triangle packages looked ok, of course, but I'm sure they were mush inside, too.

For some reason there was also an entire bushel basket and a half of blueberries there, but the person in charge wouldn't let me have any of them. Not even a single berry. Ah, well. I'll get some one of these days. Probaby frozen, but that's OK by me. I love blueberries.

CAUTION: Subconscious Liberal Gunslinging

Some pregnant women dream that they're in a situation where they have to defend their child. Yep, I've had a couple of those, too. But last night I drempt that I somehow snuck into a fundraiser/speech featuring Goobus Maximus, our illustrious (here meaning "having no luster") leader, Mr. George Witless Bastard.

Ooh, and I got him good. During the open discussion period, I used all those bland generic comments that his writers love so much (because he can't mess them up, and because no one can proove later that he meant one thing or the other.) He held me up for the audience as a fine example of American youth and intelligence and "the next generation of independent thinkers working for the good of the people."

Then, I expanded on those points, in the direction I believe they should be expanded. It felt so good to see that "I'm not sure but I think this could be very bad for me" face staring dumbly back at me, while behind him his constituancy involuntarily nodded their heads to what I'd said.

Oh yeah, I'm ready to be a parent. And the first thing I want to do is to put that brainless jerk (and the folks doing the steering) into a nice long time out.