This afternoon when Graham came home from work he asked me if I wanted to have a nap with him. Now that he’s getting up at 4:30 in the morning, this isn’t an uncommon occurrence. I’m usually tempted because although I don’t get up that early, I wake up when he does. I have been rising earlier than usual, around seven. At first I said no to the nap, that I had stuff to do, but then I realized that my work wasn’t going to actually be here in the house until later, so I relented and joined him.
We both fell into a deep sleep, but I woke up first. Graham was still dreaming because he was all elbows, as he often is, and his mouth was moving as though he was chewing something. He sleeps most of the time with his elbows straight up in the air. The first few months we lived together I wondered if I should be wearing a helmet to bed. His elbows will be up in the air and then suddenly he’ll lose control of them and they drop down, one of them sometimes falling onto my head, my shoulder, or into my eye. It’s a rude awakening.
This afternoon during this nap I had the oddest dream. Graham and I were walking in a park and I was pregnant. He asked me if I could feel the baby yet and I said that yes, I could, and I reached down and squeezed hard where my uterus would be. It was like I could put my hand through my skin, wrapping my hand virtually around it to cup and feel it. It was only the size of a large grapefruit, but in my mind’s eye I could very clearly see and feel my womb, hard and round with a very tiny baby inside.
Ordinarily a dream like this would bother me but today I am almost comforted, because in the dream I was very apprehensive at the prospect of becoming a parent. I wasn’t happy about being pregnant, I was downright disappointed, actually, and as we turned the corner onto a residential street I said to Graham, “I only want one, you know.” It’s not often that a dream reflects reality.
I am most definitely not pregnant, but I’m glad my dream self gets how I feel about my potential for motherhood.
You are at one with your subconscious. Meanwhile Bossy dreams of napping.
That’s sweet. Because babies, for the most part, will never let you sleep again.
I’m so with you on the relief those dreams bring. I used to worry about any hidden desires for children. What if I secretly wanted a baby, like everyone is always insisting? What if deep down, my subconscious desperately wanted to reproduce?
If waking up in a cold sweat from pregnancy dreams and having to chant to myself “hegotavasectomyhegotavasectomyhegotavasectomy” while I hyperventilate into the sheets is any indication, I’m pretty sure my subconscious is as childfree as I am.
Having babies is such a personal thing and I am glad that I have waited. Who know if we will or will not? Time will tell. What freaks me out is that I can’t seem to reconcile my bizarre new found urge to have children with my life-long insistence that I was never going to have any. Anytime I get around babies, I get almost hypnotized and then I snap out of it and wonder who the hell is happening to me. Maybe I am in denial.
Apprehensive gets right at the core of the thing. Oh, yes.
Oh, dude, I’m STILL freaked out about being a parent.
I’m freaked out, and I’m 14 weeks from my due date.
I didn’t get this whole pregnancy thing going until age 37, I wasn’t someone who was going to do it alone, and the partner didn’t show up in my life till three years ago. In some ways, I wish we’d had more time together to just be and work and travel and play. We did a lot in the first three years though. And my age is what it is.
We decided we weren’t people that would never have kids, and bio-clock ticking the eggs away and all that… so almost 1 year to the day of the wedding, we tried. Once. Well, twice THAT DAY. I chickened out the next day. Wanted to put it off for another month. But the deed was already done.
If I were 30, I’d still be holding on to my DINK-ness too.