Pregnant Dreams

Thank you all for your comments on my last post - I am forever amazed by y'all in this blogosphere... you are incredible, and I'm lucky. Thank you, thank you.

There are a lot of things to elaborate on from last time, but today I just want to keep it light and ask a question to the masses. When you were / while you are trying to conceive, did you dream about it ALL the time?

Literally every single night, I dream about having a baby. And I don't mean "literal" in the overused non-literal form of itself, but in the literal sense: Every. Single. Night.

Whether it's the getting ready to be pregnant part, the conception part, the being pregnant part, the almost-birthing part... I dream about it all, EXCEPT, I have yet to have a birthing dream (thank god). Last night I dreamed that we got pregnant with a girl, and then two months later, we got pregnant with a boy, and we were trying to figure out if we should raise them as twins or not. Go figure...

I imagine I am certainly not the only one with this "issue"...?

I have to say, if having a real baby inside a real tummy feels anywhere near as amazing as it does in my dreams... I can't frikkin' wait.

 

What do pregnancy dreams mean anyway? Check out the article where the above picture is from.

Babies, Babies, Everywhere!

Firstly, holy cow there have been babies being born and babies being conceived all over blogland these days - so excited to hear about new developments in the TTC world. Congrats to all who have new heartbeats, whether inside or outside of the womb.

I had a wonderful dream the other night (and I promised not to bore you with every post being dream-inspired, but I suppose my unconscious is working overtime these days). I don't know if anyone has experienced this, but I dreamed that I was pregnant and could actually feel what it felt like. Of course, I have nothing in my real life that I can compare it to, but oh-my-frikkin'-god, it felt amazing. I was quite lucid throughout the dream, and clung onto it for as long as I could before waking up. My tummy grew throughout the dream, and I could feel how every new size of it felt on me. How my baby felt in me.

When I woke up, I held back tears.

When I woke up, I had a text message on my phone. One of my best friends had sent me a photo of her 7-month-pregnant belly with the message "oh my god, i'm massive".

Yes you are. And I am empty.

A Bee In My Bonnet and Other Obsessions

I finally told D - who I can now introduce as Devon! - about this blog. As I told Devon, this was never meant to be a secret, just a channel to get all my baby-making thoughts out there without pressuring her. The last thing I wanted for my wife, especially when we were on a baby-talking hiatus, was for her to start up a computer every day and read about how her partner really really really wanted a baby. I didn't think that was fair. Nor was keeping it a secret though, so I can imagine it wasn't easy to hear about - and will probably be hard to read - but she was really supportive, in her usual really supportive way, and I'm just thrilled that she can now be a part of all this.

She left to go away on business the morning after we spoke, but I'm looking forward to showing her the blog and what amazing people there are out in this tight little community of bloggers. It didn't feel nice keeping this from her - as noble as (I thought) my intentions were - so I feel a lot lighter and less like I'm hiding something. Ideally, I would love this to be a collaborative space, though for now, there will be no "us" in crazy. Besides, she's completely sane. So.... please welcome Devon to this little world here. She's awesome. You'll like her. I promise.

And no, we have not made any decisions about having babies yet. And that's okay for the immediate time being.

Waaaaay back on Monday, I was saying that I needed to be busier and that I was looking forward to going back to work for some structure after two weeks off. I suppose I put it out to the Universe a little too strongly, as the first four days back at work has been absolutely crazy. Medium ground? Never with me....

After one botched attempt, I am trying to lower my anti-anxieties again, and started on a lower dose last night. In the past, there has been trouble falling asleep, which sucks, but as I'm learning, what sucks more is waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall back asleep. I went to bed really late last night and was up god-know-when in the morning (I try not to look at the clock because that stresses me out more).

What I do remember was one of my dreams as I was waking up in the middle of the night. The meaning of my dreams is rarely subtle, which is probably a combination of my over-active mind and my anti-depressants (head meds usually make dreams extremely vivid). I was running around and around in circles, in some third-world country, with this huge bonnet on my head that reminded me of the outdated school uniforms from Brisbane, Australia. There was no sound in the dream, just running, running, running. From what? The millions of bees in my bonnet. Yes, as I said, I never have to dig too deep to understand my subconscious.

But for you, I'll spell it out:

bee in one's bonnet 

- a single idea or a thought that remains in one's mind; an obsession.

"A metaphor comparing the incessant cerebral buzzing of a personal obsession with that of an alarming or too-close-for-comfort bee in one’s headgear."

Hmmm... wonder what that's about.

(No children were harmed in the posting of this blog - just a cute little random baby picture from the world wide web: here)

There are Two Sides to this Story

It's really tough reading over my posts about D and her words and actions without feeling a little bit of guilt. I know this is *my* blog and thus my side of things, but I never want to vilify D... all of the feelings she has around having a family are more than valid - and the fact that we are not on the same page is just a fact: we are not on the same page. It's nobody's "fault".

We talked a bit last night, coming out of the conversation yesterday morning about her dream. Neither of us were in any state to spend the entire night talking. I was sleep-deprived and she had a long day at work, and from experience, if we're not in the right head-space to talk, it never goes well.

D is extremely upset about what happened the other night, and she wanted to explain her reaction (which her dream helped her realize, somehow). Every six months or so, she has a little bit of a (almost) mid-life crisis with regards to work. Ten years ago, she started in the industry that she works in now, knowing that it was temporary and not a "forever" choice. But here she is, ten years later. She has often tossed around going back to school, which never turns into anything, but over the last few months, for the first time in 14 years, she's been incredible serious about it, and has become increasingly excited about the possibility. This time is different; this time it feels real. And I would love nothing else for her to go back to school so that she can start doing something she's passionate about.

It's also one of the first times she's been able to put herself first in this relationship. There is a long history of her sacrificing things so that I get what I want/need, and over the last six months, as we've been working on our relationship, it has evened out significantly.

I want her to go back to school. I don't want to take that away from her. I totally support the idea, and if this is something she wants to do, I will do everything I can to make that happen.

However, she doesn't think starting a family and going back to school is possible. She doesn't think that buying a townhouse in this expensive city of ours and starting a family is conducive. She doesn't want to be an "old" mom, and this is where - and the only place - that our age difference matters: I am eight years younger, and at the perfect age to be a mom (I think), but she is pushing 40, and I know it's tough for her to imagine her later life as a mom. Bottom line: She doesn't think that she'll be able to (finally) do the things that she wants to do if we have a baby.

And I need to respect that.

But, deep down inside, I know we can make everything happen: school, home, baby. Or maybe I've just got my head in the clouds and am being forcefully optimistic about being able to do all of this.

I don't want her to have to give up her dreams. But I don't want to give up my dreams either...

[Final note: If anyone has any experience with schooling at the same time as being a new mom, I'd love to hear from you about how you balance it - emotionally, financially, etc. Also, any moms who have dived into the role of motherhood "later" in life - whatever that means to you - I'd love to hear how you've found the experience.]

So, we talked last night

I don't even know what to say.

Apparently nor did she.

Perhaps I was too optimistic. Perhaps my expectations were too high.

Me: "So, I've held up my end of the deal and haven't brought up any talk about having a family for over three months, and now I really need to know where you're at."

D: "In all honesty, I haven't really thought too much about it."

(Really?!)

Me: "Oh."

Long silence.

Then some talk about lives ending after children, financial stuff, moving homes, specifics... until finally I said:

"Take away everything - don't think about the details - just tell me: Do you want to be a mum?"

D: "I don't know."

Longer silence.

I was strong and objective and I tried to make it easy for us to talk about this (as it hasn't been easy in the past), but my voice broke and I lost it when I told her that I need an answer from her because I can't continue to be in this limbo, and I need to know if this is something I have to let go of... she owes me that.

So, we left it that she would talk with me sometime this week and have an answer.

I slept for about two hours last night, woke up crying. She woke up with her alarm, and on her way out the door, said she'd had a "dream that put everything into perspective" and wants to talk tonight.

It's hard to be positive though. I was positive last night.

Crushed.

A slutty night

Last night was all about sex.

I have very vivid sexual dreams, but most of them are all pleasure with no purpose. Last night I had a very different kind of sexual dream, which kind of freaked the hell out of me when I was in it (I have lucid dreams), but especially when I woke up.

It started off pretty innocently. I was with a friend, who was introducing me to some guy that I was going to have a quick sexual encounter with to get me pregnant. Purposeful fucking, so of course that makes sense. And then it wasn't enough. I freaked out that he was my one shot - literally - and what if it didn't work? So I went on a hunt.

For however long my dream lasted, I was manically seeking the father of my not-yet-conceived child. I started off with what (in the dream) I wanted in a father: brown hair, green eyes, smart, good-looking, healthy, kind and gentle. But then it turned desperate. I *needed* to get pregnant, and so, I fucked every guy who waltzed into my dream. Anonymous faces, with looks and charms slowly going downhill with every sexual encounter. I filled up my fictional dream calendar. There were only a few hours where I was at my most fertile, and it was my last chance. This had to happen.

So anonymous faces and penises came in and out (again, quite literally), and then apparently anonymity wasn't important to me anymore, so old boyfriends showed up, friends of my brothers, and then... my entire elementary school class of boys showed up, and I went to them all rabidly for one purpose. Yes, Peter Scholtz, then Andrew Liteman, followed by Jacob McFarren, and even Richard Templeton... it didn't matter who. As long as they had sperm.

[Photo credit: Getty Images]

I often have nightmares where I need to get somewhere or do something, and if I don't, I'll die. This dream seemed no different. If I didn't get pregnant, I don't know what would have happened. And I woke up before I was finished. I rolled over to my partner - still sleeping - and chose to keep this dream under wraps for the time-being. Is it normal to have these kind of panicky dreams?

My subconscious is obviously getting impatient. I'm just trying to keep my conscious mind sane. My time will (hopefully) come, without having to fuck an entire army of boys to make a dream come true.

Ugh.