Mistake

This afternoon I laid down for a nap not long before I expected Mad to be up from hers.  I asked Corey, "If she wakes up before 3:00, please get her.  If you need me, of course come and get me."  He agreed.


To me, the above conversation means I need 45 minutes of rest. I'm not sure what it meant to Corey.


I woke up at 5:45 when Tom got home from work.  Apparently Mad got up around 4:00, but I never registered her talking over the monitor, and Corey never brought her to me (nice, but girlfriend could have used a diaper change).  Instead I was busy in dreamland, solving work-related problems and getting ready to deal with teachers, three whom I love and one who I should not have to deal with at all, let alone in my dreams while in my second week of maternity leave.  For that I'd like to thank the employer who called my cell phone today.  She didn't write down any of the information I gave her two weeks ago, so could I please call her and tell her again?  At least she was honest, I guess.


On top of being wide awake tonight, I have been hungrier than I've been in weeks.  Honestly that started yesterday at the barbecue.  It'll be interesting to see what my weight is on Wednesday.

Wet Pillow

This morning I dreamt that Fynnie had died.  Tom and I spent one last evening going places and having a lovely "date" with our daughter before heading to the hospital.  Along the way he gave me several gifts that were related to Fynn.  At each stop a happy crowd would watch as I opened the present.  One woman sat at our table and insisted on seeing the mother ring (made with wooden beads, coral and turquoise) before he gave it to me.  He leaned over the table and showed it to her while saying in a rather charming manner, "My daughter just died and I'm giving this to my wife."


Anyone feel like keeping me company while I never sleep again?

Dree-ee-ee-ee-eams, Dreams Dreams Dree-eams

I have always had bizarre dreams.  I am known for them; my sign name is a derivative of DREAM.  Most of the time they drift away as I become more alert in the morning.  One time I almost broke a two and did get two large hematomas on my knees from trying to save my son from a blue shadow man.  (Note to self:  If you're going to leap from the bed, go with the leg that's closest to the side you're on... and hope that your toe isn't wrapped up in the sheets.)


You know the suggestion to write down a dream immediately upon waking so that you can recall it later?  I tried that recently.  I don't keep pen and paper near the bed, but I do usually have my cell phone handy.  I texted myself all about the craziest dream I'd ever had (until that day anyway).  There's no point in trying to go into details; whatever I thought I was jotting down came out gibberish.  Two days later, however, the dream was crystal clear and stuck with me, probably forever.


A couple of points for context.  First, no matter how much I've declared that I'm not worried about this pregnancy and baby working out, I'm kind of an internal mess about the whole thing.  A week or so after seeing the doctor I'm great, but then the worrying begins and progressively grows stronger until I get to see Doc and hear the heartbeat again.


Second, I don't eat or drink chocolate, coffee or most teas (only peppermint... and at this point, sparingly) while pregnant.  I know, people have those things with NO problems.  They just aren't me.  Even without the caffeine, I've had more heart palpitations in the past four months than I've probably had in the last 10 years.  No coffee or chocolate sometimes wears on me.  Oddly, chocolate deprivation sometimes bothers me more even though it's not something I have often, whereas coffee is my life.


My latest dream was set on the same day of my real life; the day before my next appointment.  In it, I delivered the baby that day.  It didn't survive and it looked more like a malformed space alien wax figure.  Tom and I were absorbing the shock when he suddenly said, "But someone brought you a small box of chocolates."


It turned out to be a giant box of rather large chocolates, covered in chocolate shavings.


I remember reaching for the box with a smile and saying something like, "Well, no baby, but there's chocolate."  (I would just like to add that I haven't even gotten to that level of chocolate interest, let alone desire, yet.)  Somewhere in there I must have known that everything was okay, because I wouldn't eat anything until I could confirm what I didn't really believe had happened.  I woke up right after that.


So no surprise that I almost burst into tears on the exam table on Wednesday, right?  Baby's heartbeat is strong and fast.  It's more like Madelyn's than Corey's.  We didn't get to hear it for long because this baby is a mover and a shaker.  Even at the first ultrasound (around eight weeks) the little bean was moving like I've never seen happen before. 


We go for the ultrasound in less than three weeks, and my biggest real concern is that he/she won't be still long enough to learn what I'm dying to know.  After that we only have one last insurance-covered opportunity to see the baby before birth (one of the true the joys of being of "advanced maternal age").  In any case, my goal right now is to match my internal chaos to the external calm.