I have this friend. I call her GI Jane because she was once in the military. She is now out of the military, has been with her partner, Sheila, for five years and they are expecting a baby, due date Memorial Day. Sheila already has a 16 year old daughter from a previous marriage, but Jane's mama-clock kicked in on her 37th birthday and they decided to have a baby together. Jane has a degree in public relations and last year earned her M.F.A in fiction writing. She landed a plum job as a news writer at a TV station a mere FOUR days after her masters was in hand. Sheila is a bank manager. When their son (they knew the sex asap) arrives, Jane plans to take her maternity leave and then Sheila will leave her job to stay home with him.
Jane calls me every night after Lost. So, when the phone rang last night and I saw Jane's number on the caller id, I assumed that the baby was coming or had already arrived, since it wasn't a Wednesday night. I picked up the phone and it was Jane. Her voice was decidedly grumpy, so I knew that little Flynn Laurence had not arrived yet.
She said, that no, she wasn't calling me with news. She was calling because...well...because she had had a dream last night and she wanted me to help her analyze it. I told her to go ahead. Tell me.
A long silence.
"I don't think I can yet," she said. "Can we talk about other stuff for awhile and just slip into it casually in a few moments?"
Okkkkayy.
We talked about Lost. About my total love of Sawyer (I swear if his character was a woman I would be done for) and her total love of Kate. We discussed how Jack's eyes just keep getting more limpid each show.
We discussed my blog. Jane told me that my thing for the Johnny Mathis song was just plain creepy and that I need to stop it, right now. We discussed how our mother's days had panned out.
We discussed how she finally has the big giant gazoombas that she always wanted. Unfortunately, she also has this big giant belly to go with them. She said the boobs make her feel like Jayne Mansfield and the belly makes her feel like Horton the elephant. She said that idiot people keep coming up to her and touching her belly and she has just about had it with that. That the next person who does that is going to get their butt felt up and see how they like THAT shit.
"So," I finally said, "Are you ever going to get to this dream?"
She sighed. "Well, it's just...it made me realize that I am a terrible mother and this kid isn't even born yet. Maybe I should just send you the adoption papers and you should get your guest room painted baby blue."
I told her to just tell me the frackin dream already.
She said that she dreamed that she had the baby and it looked exactly like Draco Malfoy.
I stifled a laugh.
"Even if I can't hear you, I KNOW you are laughing at me," she growled. "I can feel you snickering. So stop it. That isn't the worst of it."
"I'm not snickering," I told her. "Ok. Maybe I am chortling a little, but not snickering."
She then proceeded with the rest of the dream. Apparently, in her dream, once she saw her Draco Malfoy lookalike son, she cold bloodedly went to a "baby grocery store" and tried to exchange him for a better looking baby, one who wouldn't act like a little asshole and be a death eater when he grew up.
"I can't believe I did this even in my dream!" she wailed. "I was so cold hearted about it. I actually tried to foist him off on someone else and steal THEIR baby instead!. What kind of monster mother am I?"
I told her that this was a very common occurrence, that often pregnant women have very vivid, very weird dreams. Some women dream that they give birth to puppies. Others dream that their baby turns into a plant. It was no big deal.
Jane sighed. "It's just...I hope he didn't dream that with me. I mean, what if he is just laying there in his soft little nest inside of me and then WHAM...there I go dreaming that I hate him and want to give him away. I keep picturing him watching my dreams like little miniature movies and there I go dreaming shit like that. He'll have a complex and he isn't even born yet. I am fucking him up already! I am a very bad mother!"
I told Jane that I would write a blog about this and ask everyone who has been pregnant if they remember what they dreamed about. She agreed. Said that she reads this blog nearly every day. (My analytics say that it is actually about twice a week, you lying big fat pregnant woman..but hey, ok.)
So...what did you dream about while you were pregnant?"
We talked for a bit more and then I told her to go put her feet up and call me after Lost. She agreed and we began saying our goodbyes.
Right before we hung up, I told her that I thought Draco was actually kind of an interesting name.
She called me a horrid, filthy name. And then went off to soak her swollen ankles.
16 comments:
Hahahahahahheeehaw. Great post.
I don't remember my pregnancy dreams, but I remember that I had a lot of crazy ones and woke up in cold sweats. She'll be fine. :-)
Thanks for your comment...meant a LOT.
(Almost time for LOST...)
I dreamed about nights where wife.imp's feet did not cramp and that she actually did not place those ice cubes on my legs...
I've got a dream for you... I just posted about it. And you are mean mean mean for that last comment, make that deliciously bitchy! Sounds like something I would have done... lol
I used to have terrible dreams at the end of my pregnancy. One that I had a lot was that my baby was born she was see-through. I also dreamed that she would float around the room like a helium balloon. The worst though was when I dreamt that I was in labor during the Civil War and someone was trying to shoot a cannon at me. Hormones do strange things to a woman's dreams.
not sure I time to dream in between getting up for a pee several million times a night.
I know that when pregnant with dumpling, I would keep waking with a line from the dream, something someone had said or a line from a song repeating in my head, very random but had to get out of my head, I would waddle off to the kitchen still mentally saying this phrase, it wouldnt go till I went back to sleep then I would wake with a different one!
Dont miss that, slept like a log after that massage yesterday!
I've never been pregnant, but I'm still hoping.
And who's Draco Malfoy?
Draco would be an --interesting-- name! I had very vivid dreams when I was pregnant. The colors were abnormally bright. Once I dreamt I threw my baby out of a second story window. But then it turned out not to be my baby. And then someone caught the baby--well, you know how dreams are!
with Lorelei, i had recurrent nightmares about the abuse in my own past, at the hands of foster parents, until i decided NOT to give her up for adoption, at which point those dreams ended and were replaced by recurrent nightmares about giving birth to twins or triplets and then going stark raving mad and ending up a catatonic, gray old woman in a wheelchair in that famous New York lunatic asylum whose name I forget.
How's THAT for a run-on sentence?
With Storm, I didn't have any notable dreams. Just gallstones, 9 months of morning sickness all day long, and a strong conviction that she was going to be a boy.
I think it's pretty normal. I know I've heard the ones about the puppies and the plants before. I'm almost positive that the baby isn't watching her dreams on a big screen down there, although he might be getting some of her stress endorphins.
Well...dream wise, I had some sweet dreams, and then some freaky dreams where my mom & I would take the baby out, but leave his umbilical cord attached, b/c we knew he wasn't ready to be born yet. We just wanted to see what he looked like & play with him. So, we'd take him out, play for a little while, and then put him back in.
Talk about a WEIRD DREAM. Having your mother assist you in RE-INSERTING a baby into your uterus, THROUGH YOUR VAGINA!
On another note---I had this amazing fear that I was going to have an ugly baby & not instantly fall in love like every mother told me I would.
So...then all the mothers tell me that even if my baby comes out ugly, I won't think it's ugly b/c it's mine---so it won't matter.
Which then made me afraid that if Gage was ugly when he was born---everyone would just lie to me & tell me that he wasn't.
So, when he was born---of course I thought he was beautiful. But I never Reeeeeeeeeeally trusted that everyone else thought that too.
But, I didn't care either.
He was finally OUT of my body, and I thought he was beautiful. That's all that mattered.
I've never been pregnant, but I did work in labor and delivery during college. I'll never forget the patient with the ultrasound scare. As I was helping her change into a gown, she asked me, "How accurate are those 3D ultrasound pictures?"
"I don't know," I said. "I guess I've never really had the chance to compare them to the actual babies. Why? Do you have one?"
"Yeah," she said, producing a picture of what looked like a really soggy old man.
She whispered, "I know this sounds terrible, but I really hope he doesn't look like this. This looks just like my father-in-law. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to breastfeed him if he looks like my father-in-law."
Several hours later, she gave birth to a baby that looked nothing like her father-in-law. I don't think I've ever seen a woman so relieved.
Dang, that was a long time ago and I have no recollection of my dreams. I do remember that I went hormonally crazy, hated everyone I knew, slept a lot and pretty much didn't leave the house till after I delivered.
LOL...too funny!
At least she didn't dream that she gave birth to Hagrid. That dude must have been 18 lbs at birth.
There are a variety of ways to break this dream down. Draco is a miniature carbon copy of his father (in much the same way Harry is a copy of James). I've learned not to ask women couples where the male chromosomes came from for their children, but it does beg the question. Hypothetically, if it was an anonymous donor, could she subconsciously be worried about the character of he boy's father? Furthermore, could she be subconsciously wondering where she will find the long-term positive male roll model that every nay-sayer is guilting her into thinking her child needs? That’s where I’d start.
And no, I’m not offering to be Baby Draco’s positive influence. I can’t even keep my plants alive. And after spending any time reading the Piglet, would you really want me anywhere near your friend’s kids?
I only remember one extremely vivid dream and I doubt it will be of comfort to your friend. About 2 weeks before my daughter was born I had a dream about her as a 2-3 yr. old. I held her and looked at her and heard her voice. A couple of years later I realized that I had in fact seen the future in that dream. My daughter looked exactly the way I'd seen her.
"lying big fat pregnant woman"? LOL You are too much Maria.
I haven't popped a baby out but I often dream of my children. Mostly me holding this tiny little thing in a pink blanket and it saying, "You a bitch, mama". I think it is just goes back to say about my difficulties with how I feel about my mother.
GI Jane-Don't worry about it. You have no control over your dreams and baby doesn't see your dreams. You will be a fantastic mom just like Maria.
I don't have children, so I couldn't tell you about pregnancy dreams.
Draco is a wretched name.
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