My friend tells me that my more heart wrenching posts should come with a “tissue warning.”
Well, this post comes with a “seriously messed up sh*t warning”
because that’s the only accurate description for what a pregnant woman dreams about at night.
Don’t you hate it when people just abandon shopping carts in
parking spaces at grocery stores? I mean, how hard is it to take them to the cart
return? Lazy jerks.
After Quinn was born, I found myself paralyzed in the
parking lot after our first grocery store outing together. I had just loaded all
the bags into the car and snapped in Q’s infant seat. Seized with anxiety, I gripped the handle of
the shopping car unsure of what to do next. The cart return was clear across
the parking lot, and I didn’t want to leave my teeny tiny baby alone in the car
for even a moment. Even though logic told me he would be fine in the car for 90
seconds, the knot in my stomach screamed otherwise. So I hooked the wheels of
the shopping cart over the curb next to a nearby parking space and left. I’m
that jerk.
This irrational fear of leaving Q alone in the car has been
with me ever since, resulting in a horrifically eff-ed up dream when I was
pregnant for Reid. In the dream, I left Q in the car to return the shopping
cart, but when I came back, my car was gone. I started panicking. I couldn’t
breathe. I grabbed the nearest stranger and tried to choke out the right words
to tell her my baby was gone. Instantly, the parking lot was swarmed with cop
cars and flashing lights. Then suddenly, it was dark outside and I knew a lot
of time had passed and he’d been missing all day. Then someone said they found
the car on the other side of the parking lot. (Wait, it took that long to find the car in the same parking lot???
Yes, to review, this is an eff-ed up dream.) Screaming Quinn’s name, I ran
toward the car. I could see Q’s shape still strapped into his toddler seat… but
I knew what happens when a child has been left in a hot car all day… and I knew
what I was about to find…
And then I jolted awake before I saw what I can’t un-see. Just
like in a movie, I sprang upright in bed, panicked, sweaty and gasping for air.
One arm wrapped around my very pregnant belly, I lunged for the video monitor with
the other arm. I needed to see him!
I watched Quinn sleep on the monitor for a few moments, just
barely able to make out the steady rise and fall of his chest. I let the
rhythmic sound of his noise machine come through the monitor and slowly soothe
me until I could breathe normally again.
And then I let the tears fall.
But my hell was not over yet. The following night, I dreamt
that Q and I were broadsided by another car. As our SUV spun in circles, I could
feel Reid’s spirit leaving my body and I just knew I’d lost the baby. I yelled
for Quinn, but I couldn’t hear him over the squeal of brakes and tires and the
shattering of glass. The spinning motion kept my head bolted to the seat, and I
couldn’t turn my neck to look back at him. I prayed to God to please let him be
okay… but if He was going to take both of my babies, He had to take me, too.
This time I jolted awake – again, panicked and sweaty –
before our car even stopped spinning, so I have no idea how the dream would have ended. But
I don’t think I want to know.
Yo, pregnancy dreams are no joke, people. Most of my preggo
dreams were just a bit weirder than normal, but a few, like these two, were downright
morbid. But before you shove me onto a bus to Crazy Town, it’s not just me. Ask any mom, and she will tell you
that she had some crazy-ass dreams when she was pregnant, too.
When my aunt was pregnant, she dreamt that she kept the baby
in the toilet tank. Yes, you read that right. In her dream, the baby slept in the back of the toilet. Hmmm, maybe it’s
because I had that story and this blog post on my mind when I went to sleep last night, but
last night I dreamt that I put Reid to bed… in a fish tank. And he was fine,
breathing normally and sleeping there under the water with the fish, totally
cool. And I’m not even preggers anymore!
What’s the nuttiest, eff-ed up dream you had while preggers?
Come on, make me feel less "cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs."
