dreams

I remember when I was pregnant I didn't dream very much about the baby. Although I wanted to, I only had two dreams about the baby; one near the beginning of the pregnancy and one near the end, which I can't remember. Oh wait, there was also the one just after I found out I was pregnant. Somewhere around 15 or 20 weeks, I dreamed that I had the baby and it was a boy and although he was severely premature, he was already 8 pounds and didn't have to stay at the hospital at all. Unfortunately, I had no clothes for him. So my sister gave me Zoe's baby clothes, which were all pink. I didn't care about dressing him in pink though because he was clearly a miracle baby and I was just so pleased with him.

Towards the end of the pregnancy I had another dream but I can't remember now what happened in it. I do, however, remember one of Dave's dreams: the baby came out as an old man, which was slightly prophetic. Ezra definitely had that wizened, slightly atrophied look about him for the first few days. I remember when he was a few days old I witnessed/participated in my first diaper change (because of the c-section I couldn't get out of bed for a few days so Dave did all the early ones). I got a shock when I caught a glimpse of his bum; "He has an old man's bum," I laughed. When I told my mom about this surprise, she asked, "How do you know what an old man's bum looks like?" "From Sex and the City. There was an episode where Samantha gets together with a rich old man but she runs away when she sees his bum."

After he was born I often dreamed I was in labour again, and I dreamed a lot of my Grandma Ruth, who died when I was six months pregnant and for whom I still grieved, dying over and over again. These dreams often involved conversations with her as she was dying or when she came for visits from the afterlife. I think these dreams were necessary as I processed the fear from Ezra's birth.

In the evenings for the first two months or so, I would go to bed around 8 after Ezra nursed and Dave would stay up with Ezra. This way I could get a solid 2 or 3 hours of sleep. Dave would wake me when Ezra got hungry and I would struggle to consciousness, confused and disoriented. I could hear Ezra crying but I didn't understand why because I was dreaming I had just nursed him. I would even say to Dave, "But I just nursed him." And Dave would reply, "No, you've been dreaming."

When Ezra was around 4 months old, we started putting him in his crib in another room to sleep. But he was still waking a lot and he would often interrupt my dreams. I would nurse him back to sleep and the dream would stay wrapped around my head like a fog. I often found that during the next day, I would remember my dreams as he nursed.

Since we've given up on the crib and sleep with Ezra all the time, the dreams don't revisit me when I nurse. I think this is because when mum and baby sleep together, their sleep cycles synchronize (say that ten times fast). So now when he's in a light sleep about to wake up, so am I, and it's much less disruptive. I suspect this is partly why my mood has elevated so much.

tags: dreams, baby