In the last few weeks, the dreams about misplacing or dropping the baby have subsided. I've replaced them almost entirely with dreams about birth itself.
In one, I was trying to give labor support to an unknown other woman, apparently in the Lake Street K-Mart (its shelves empty of goods, its aisles empty of shoppers); but I wasn't doing a very good job of it, didn't know what to say to help or encourage her.
In another, I dreamed (disturbingly realistically) that my water broke onto the bathroom floor, and as I waited for contractions to begin I rushed around my house preparing it for the birth, making the beds and such, and couldn't get Mark to help me.
My third and fourth pregnancies were fraught with odd anxieties in a way that my first and second ones never were. (#3 was worse than #4 has been, at least so far). You would think that I would be less, not more, anxious as I gain experience with birthing, especially since my labors have been on the whole healthy and uncomplicated. I have a theory about this. I grew up in a family with two children, my brother and me, and I didn't know many people who came from families much larger than that. The "normal" number of kids to have seemed for most of my life to be two… or maybe three.
I think maybe deep down it feels like an indulgence to have three and then four. As if I don't deserve to have "so many," and especially to have healthy and happy children. I have more than a few good friends by now who either came from families of five or more children, or who have had 5 or more children themselves, or sometimes both — so you would think I would have formed a new idea of normal. I have, in my head, but I don't think it's trickled down to my gut yet.
Can all this joy really be my lot? It is apparently tough to admit it.
bearing blog 