Nightmares

I had a dream last night that we had a baby girl (! both Carl and I have referred to the baby as "she" lately by accident, although we are both aware this may be habit). She didn't cry, ever, and I was for some reason obsessed with getting proper snack food (homemade trail mix bars, etc.) made. Then I put her in a knapsack - not a baby one, a regular one - and took her out. Only at that point, in my dream, did I realize she hadn't been changed in a very long time. So I went to a drugstore and bought changing supplies and went to change her in the washroom.

And she was limp, like Emily was the night we changed her, and pale and grey-tinged, the way Emily was becoming. Essentially she was dying of neglect. I woke up feeling horrible. Obviously that would never happen, but it tied into that helplessness that we had at the hospital, unable to protect Emily from anything, and all the viceral memories were right there at the surface. I'm not sure there's nothing worse than watching your baby die in front of you and knowing the only thing you can do is call in the team to hook her up to machines for the rest of her life, but it certainly ranks up there.

And witch baby wasn't moving. But I got up and went to the bathroom and chatted until witch baby did. Phew.

I remember having dreams during Emily's pregnancy that were, if not quite so graphic, similar - I lost the baby, I left the baby - and I do think they actually serve a purpose. Like, an evolutionary one, where the human brain gets involved in the need to care for the underdeveloped human baby, sort of marshalling the resources of the subconscious. But with Emily when I woke up I could sort of dismiss them more easily - I can dismiss the idea that we would ever do anything like that dream, but I can't dismiss that things happen to babies to make them that way.

I see why my ob nurse said the third trimester might be the hardest.