crazy dream

(Note: As of Thurs am, this post has been edited - i missed the most awkward part of the dream, Anthony reminded me of it last night, so i have now included it in this revised post)

It was late spring, 2007. Anthony & I were at RUH doing the pre-baby hospital tour that is offered to all pregnant couples....For some reason, our friend Glen (yes, as in Glen & Jackie) was the 'receptionist' at the hospital - he was providing great hospitality to us - getting us cold drinks, etc.

We went up to 4th, and were in a waiting room, and that's when i remember going into labour. It was sudden enough that we had to be admitted right away.

The next thing i remember was waking up in a hospital bed with Anthony looking over me with concern. I asked what happened, and he said "we had our baby!" We were very excited....but i was slightly confused, as I did not remember any of the labour and delivery process at ALL. I asked him about it, and he said "Oh, you were in labour for two days" - we had gone to the hospital on a tuesday afternoon for the tour, and it was now Thursday afternoon.

I did not remember a single thing about the past two days - my last memory had been in the waiting room when they brought a wheelchair for me to take me to admitting. I asked Anthony for details, and I guess the labour had been incredibly brutal, there was a great deal of tearing involved and of course, 48 hours of it had been very hard on me and on him. But i was still blissfully blank in my memory of any of the events. I told him he would have to give me all the details he could remember later, as i was a bit disappointed to have missed the whole process (but relieved at the same time). I remember thinking "Well, i guess i can do this again for sure, seeing as i'll have no negative memories of the first time through!"

I really wanted to see our baby, so we persuaded Glen (who was now the ward clerk) to let us go see the baby - for some reason, this was against protocol, but because Glen knew us he made special allowances for us. The baby was in a hospital bassinet and was so very beautiful. I looked at it and knew it was a boy, but had to check under the diaper just to confirm - yup, a boy!

After one look at this baby (who i had immediately snatched from the bassinet and was now cuddling and cooing at), he had my heart. I remember the feeling of the instant bond that i had to this precious child, and was just amazed at the strength of the emotions welling up inside me.
He was already cute and chubby - a 9 pounder! - and had quite a large head with huge green eyes - not the darkish color that babies are normally born with. I couldn't figure out where the green eyes had come from, but i just brushed it off.

We knew immediately that the names that we had thought of as possibilities for a boy (which were consistent with the names we have actually talked about to this point) would not fit this little guy, and that he would have to remain nameless until we found the perfect name for him. I remember not being able to immediately recall the names we had thought of, and instead the names of friends' babies (like Clive) popped into my head first, and i had to say "no, that was Ruth's baby, that's not the name we had thought of" but then "our" names came to mind. Nope, they didn't fit.

EDIT:

While we were holding our boy and cooing over him, Leyton (the lead pastor at our church) came by, and i was like "Did you see our new baby!!!???" all excited to show him off and such. Leyton was like "Um, yeah, i did already - remember? I was with you guys in delivery for 10 hours helping you push! ANthony had one leg, and i had the other to give you resistance!!" It was at that point that i had my first and only memory of the whole labour/delivery process, and in it, there's tony on one leg, Leyton on the other as i'm pushing as hard as i can....i recall another person there too, a female, i know it was one of my friends, but i cannot remember now who it was. (yeah, can you imagine how awkward it would be for your pastor to help deliver your baby?)

(Back to the original....)

It was at this point that i remembered that we did not have ANY of our belongings with us that we had wanted to have in the hospital - no camera, no baby name book, no clothes for me. I was pretty distressed about the name book, I knew that i would have to spend hours poring over it to find the perfect name, regardless of how exhausted i was, and was upset that it was at home and i wouldn't be able to find the name until we could go get the book.

We were also pretty bummed that the camera was at home, because really, who doesn't want pictures of their precious newborn? Glen (who is a photographer on the side) found some other couple's digital camera laying around and suggested we just use it, and then he would download the pics onto his work computer right away and email them to us and delete the pictures from the camera and noone would be the wiser. But for some reason, he could NOT figure out how to operate the camera, so we were disappointed yet again.

The only other thing i remember is being relatively amazed that i was feeling so well after what people were telling me was a pretty traumatic labour/delivery. I remember not feeling any pain from the tearing (yeah right) and that there was no 'discharge' (again, yeah right). I was feeling pretty much normal, overall, even when i was walking around with the baby.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The funny thing with this dream is that i can place exactly where each aspect of the dream came from based on my day yesterday.

I had a conversation with a coworker yesterday where we were talking about a job opportunity that I applied for - it's at RUH and i was discussing how convenient that would be, i could work right to the end of my term (if everything goes well) and if i went into labour at work, they could just bring a wheelchair down for me.

We got Glen & Jackie's christmas letter yesterday (and he was doing some photography at the youth banquet on last Friday) - Jackie is actually a nurse, and she talked about that in the letter.

I had looked at the paper with the dates for hospital tours last night before bed, and i was also reading my new favorite pregnancy book (The girlfriend's guide to pregnancy) before turning out the light - i read the chapter on "what to take to the hospital" and a bit about the labour/delivery stuff.

So yeah, funny how my brain combined each of these snippets into a cohesive story. I have to say i did wake up feeling pretty relaxed about the whole labour/delivery process...tho i haven't been worried about that (yet) anyways.

Last night i had been a bit anxious....it's becoming more real every day (and now especially since we're telling more and more people and the 'whole world' is on the verge of hearing the news), it has just been hitting home a lot more lately, and last night the magnitude of the change (as much as i understand and experience it now) hit me, along with the fact that my job is done in 3 days, and i have not found anything to replace it yet - all this combined made for quite an anxious mommy-to-be, but after some prayer and reading and cuddles from Tony and this crazy dream, i'm feeling a lot better today. How could a dream like that not make me smile and feel warm and fuzzy inside all day?