When my mother was pregnant with me, she dreamed about a little girl with long brown braids on a swing. I had no face but she knew it was me. I have been waiting eight months for a dream like this.
I have been waiting to see my baby in my dreams, to get a feeling whether we are having a boy or a girl. Since pregnancies often last past 40 weeks (last I checked, that means TEN months, not the male gynecologist’s idealized nine months), I figure I have two months for my gender-predicting dreams to come.
But in my own way, I am having pregnancy dreams. Stick with me here – I might lose you for a second. Last night I dreamed I was a synchronized water-skiing spy. Every time I was near a window, I lunged for the ground because I was sure there were snipers out to get me. How could this possibly relate to pregnancy you might ask? It does, it does…for the simple reason that one most likely is not a pregnant water skiing spy, or even just a water skiing spy. (Now, I am sure some ninja mom is going to pop up and tell me she water-skied well into her tenth month ; or still someone else is going to tell me they worked as a spy or operative up until the day they went into labor. WhatEVER.) It’s a pregnancy dream because when you become a mother in order to achieve one dream, you have to give up on some other fantasies. I most likely will have to sacrifice becoming a water-skiing spy, ostensibly because my child will be my priority. Not a big sacrifice mind you, because I would be a terrible spy. I can’t lie, I am not sneaky, and it’s been proved countless times I can’t do that whole graceful evasion of the rain-of-enemy-bullets shtick…I can’t even manage to cross a room with a patterned carpet.
So, as much as this dream represents something I probably won’t be doing any time soon, a possibility that I have to leave behind, as I lay down tonight, I get so excited to think about this being growing in my body, this person who I love so much and have never even met. I can happily forget about a thrilling life of marine espionage. I already know I will be getting so much more. There will be many days – and wild-eyed, exasperated nights – where I will need to remind myself of that but I am sure I am getting the better end of the bargain. As a pregnant woman, a parent, or even a plain old grown-up, we all leave something behind as we choose a different dream. You, dear reader, knows what it feels like to realize that you probably won’t be a _____________ing ________ who _________ (insert here your MadLib equivalent to my synchronized water-skiing spy here) but you also know what it feels like to find out that you might turn out to be something a whole lot better.
