{pearl rocks the kanye shades at my shower}
on my last flight to Florida i found myself on the back of the plane, nestled in between a group of young guys headed off to army boot camp. they were all fired up, excited about what was ahead...seemingly unafraid of the possibility of actually going to war. they spoke about military exercises like they were trying out for American Gladiators, and they couldn't wait to show off.
one guy in the row in front of me turned around to talk. he couldn't have been more than 19 years old.
"yo, are you pregnant?"
"yes i am."
"how many months?"
"six..."
"yeah, six, damn, that's what i was gonna say. i got a 5 month old at home, my girlfriend had the baby when she was 6 months, same as you...just don't sit on any hard floors."
"hard floors?" i thought of the comfort i usually get from sitting on the wood floors in prenatal yoga. i could tell i was in for a little bit of a tale.
"yeah. they told her that's what put her into labor early...she was sittin' on this hard cold floor at her auntie's house, and then she started feeling pains, and then she went into labor. are you a dancer?"
"not anymore..."
"oh it might be tough for you, cause my girlfriend's a dancer, and her muscles were all tight down there so she had a rough labor."
"i'll try to remember that..."
And the flight before that one, to New York, the air steward up front while I was waiting for the bathroom told me his wife delivered their baby at 6 months as well.
So these dreams have started:
#1. i'm sitting on the floor of the hospital, the baby comes early, like 4 months, and they whisk her away to NICU. i spend the rest of the dream wandering the hospital looking for the baby. my dad is there, in a wheelchair, helping me look.
#2. we're riding in the car, i have had some kind of prenatal stomach surgery, but then the baby pops out of my surgery wound, so tiny. brad starts passing her around the car, and i say it's not time to show her off just yet, she has more growing to do. so i have to scrunch her down into a tiny ball and squish her back in through my stomach wound and tape it all up. gross.
#3. i am in my house and suddenly the baby is there, i'm changing a diaper. i see that the baby is a boy and not a girl. i ask brad what happened to the girl, and he said it was a boy instead, and i just haven't changed any diapers yet because i've had to be sedated since the birth. i was getting too crazy. the boy's name is zachary. then i wake up the next morning and zachary is 3, and a very bad boy, just kind of an evil child. we have another baby, a girl, named vanessa. neither of these are names i would ever use. i'm like, who named this baby? brad said he did, because i had to be drugged again. i asked who was telling them to drug me, and he told me it was his stepdad's brother. at this point, i'm realizing everyone's gone crazy and there is no point asking why his stepdad's brother is in the hospital with us.
#4. i think i'm having a miscarriage, or rather i do, i deliver the baby at 7 months, seems stillborn, but also looks like a baby dragon--like it never grew past that manatee stage of like, 3 weeks gestation. i'm in a public restroom. someone says to me, "oh, your baby never grew past the dragon stage." but i say, no! i've been feeling her kick! and they tell me i'm just imagining things. then someone says maybe we can give the dragon CPR. we do, and then she becomes a regular looking baby, except very small, the size of my hand. still, everything seems like it's going to be okay.
#5. i realize i haven't ever breastfed my child, and it's been like 3 days, so she's starved and nearly dying. i'm trying to breastfeed and this weird little boy keeps coming into the room and telling me i don't have a proper latch, and "don't you know anything??" i wonder why no one has fed this baby for 3 days. i'm a horrible mother.
so yeah, that's where my brain's at. i think it's all of kelly's early labor scares of late, plus stories of hard floors from unknowing army boys, but as much as i wish i could meet this baby right now, i can wait for her to finish growing.
you know, just so she isn't a dragon when she comes out.
i had my LA shower yesterday (more pictures to come!) and i think i'm finally pretty well set with all the baby stuff, which is a good feeling. this child will need no clothes until she's a year old, at least.
we have our second childbirth class today, it's supposed to be the "labor" one, where we learn all of "that" stuff, so i have to put my thinking cap on and pay attention. now that we've started classes i feel like we're really working on this as a cool science project together. now instead of a tri-fold fiber board with construction paper to highlight the hypothesis and conclusion, there is this little place on the interweb. now that's extra scientific!
i've lately been feeling pretty scientific, or wanting to be, wishing i'd gone into one of the sciences. i think i'd make a pretty awesome experimenter. maybe it's all the Dexter DVDs we've been watching, and all the crime scene tech stuff, but i think i'd have made a pretty good detective. and all this labor and delivery knowledge is making me pretty interested in becoming a doula or something of that nature.
i'd say i have about 3 other careers left in me, so i'm not ruling anything out. except butcher or pest exterminator. or banker or businesswoman. those things sound gross.
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