Dreams

So never in my entire life have I been a dreamer (literally-I mean) I sleep, I do not dream while sleeping, ok so I know that psychologically I do, but I never remember my dreams.

I can remember one dream from when I was very young, first or second grade maybe, wherein a racoon threatened me so that I would not eat my vegetables so he could eat them out of the trash. This is a very true story and is the only dream I remember ever having...until now!

During the first trimester of pregnancy I read that because of hormones changing I would begin to have odd dreams, among many other crazy side effects of pregnancy, but it didn't really kick in till a few weeks ago. And oh buddy has it been a roller-coaster of imagery every night since.

The first of my wonderful dreams occurred one morning when Jared had already left for work, so when I awoke I was alone, with no one to share my anxiety with. This first dream was about penguins. Yes penguins! These creatures are cute, don't get me wrong, but I have never had a specific love or aversion to them so why they would appear in my dreams is beyond me!

It was time for the baby, Jared and I rushed to the hospital, waited patiently through hours and hours of contractions, ice chips, the epidural, and lack of sleep, the anticipation was unbearable, even from my comatose state, the room was a perfect setting, everything we have planned, soft music playing, lights dimmed, pictures of the beach, friends and family waiting in the lobby. It was a rather pleasant experience. Finally my Doctor said it was time to push. Jared was by my side. Within a few minutes the labor was over. We both strained to see our girl over the shoulders of the doctor and nurses, who were crowded around her. The doctor finally turned around, the nurses moved in on the "baby" as if creating a military barrier, the doctor had one of those, about-to-give-bad-news looks on her face and we were panicked! She held my hand and said "Lindsey, I would like you to meet your children,"

WHOA hold on a minute, I was only suppose to have one child, A girl, the nursery was painted pink, we had an adorable wardrobe waiting for her at home and we had the name picked out. They had suspected twins when we were first pregnant but it had been ruled out during the sonogram. I was beyond scared and panicked and strait into confused.

The nurses turned around and each were holding a small... baby... (you guessed it) penguin.

Through a whillrwin of doctors and reporters time seemed to fly by. I was unable to feed "my children" and it was a medical mystery how a woman could give birth to two healthy penguins. Jared and I tried to be excited and love them but were scared and still wanted our baby girl. A zoo representative came to the hospital to see us and explained that penguins need a very special habitat and that we would be unable to care for them ourselves. He confiscated the animals as if they were stolen property.

OK so I know they are penguins and I was confused and devastated but those were my children and he just took them. I went from anticipating one baby girl to having two baby penguins to having no babies at all.

I was discharged from the hospital later that day. My family returned home since there was no baby to help with, and my friends had long since left, probably out of confusion. Jared and I came home, in a car with a car seat and no baby. To a home decorated with welcome home Baby signs and a nursery full of pink and love. I walked around the house, admiring all of the essential baby items, the pack-n-play in the den, the bottles stored in the cabinet, the bouncy seat and swing in the living room. I ended up in the nursery, sitting in the glider. I was home, alone. We had anticipated her for months, planned everything, imagined how she would look (probably like aunt kara). We had talked to her in the womb, seen pictures of what we thought was her in the sonogram, yet there was no her. No baby girl the be brought home, to fill the spaces around the house with crying, and laughing. After nine months, nothing.

I woke up. I was devastated and immediately rolled over to wake up Jared and realized he was gone. I looked at the clock it was sometime past nine so I called him at work (something I try not to do) I told him the whole story which through my speed-talking and crying took all of 2 minutes and waited in silence for him to respond. He finally just laughed. I was shocked, how could he laugh, we had no baby. Then he said, "Lindsey, it's ok thats not going to happen, it was a dream" But I'm obviously new to this whole dream thing and was so confused, it seemed so real, so lifelike, I had cried, and been scared. But now it was sinking in, the dream was further away and reality was creeping its way back in. I began to laugh through still present tears. I was ok, my growing daughter was ok. It was just a dream.