A dream and fresh eggs

I rarely dream. But I dreamed last night and actually remembered it this morning.

I had a baby. There was no birth scene, otherwise it would have been a nightmare. I just all of a sudden had a baby girl in my arms (ok, so maybe it was a nightmare). She was wrapped in a pink blanket and had the most amazing smile. We were in my old house in Wisconsin and I'm not really sure why. But when I woke up I found myself trying to go back to sleep to see more. It didn't work.

I had such a happy, peaceful feeling in my dream, but I know in reality I can't do the baby thing. Given my high stress levels and mental fragility, I'd ruin any child in my presence long enough to be affected. They'd grow up angry and afraid of everything: afraid to take risks, afraid to look others in the eye, afraid to challenge themselves, afraid of disappointment. And I wouldn't be able to deal with my influence in that.

So I've thought a lot about donating my eggs. My birth control implant will run out when I'm 30 and you can donate between the age of 25-33. Neil is against the idea. Not because I'll be riddled with fertility drugs and off-limits for 6 weeks at a time, but because he's creeped out (for lack of a better term) with the idea of my genes existing in the world. I really don't feel that way at all. I guess the desire for me to help others is greater than the concern of them having a child with my genetic code.

I know how I'd feel if I really wanted a baby and was unable to. Most women desperately do anything to make it happen anyway. Some adopt. Others want more control. And who am I to judge someone wanting as much control of a situation as possible? I feel if I can't be a good mother myself, I can at least help someone else be a good mother or father. It's this deep-seeded need to be useful. Because I feel so utterly useless most of the time.

One more for the road

So, just after I say that I rarely have dreams I can recall ... I go and have another one last night.

In this dream, a friend of mine decides to tell me the secret that she has been having an affair with a friend's husband. So we both talk about how she's not to blame because the guy was the married one ... the one with now-pointless vows. I'm sure in real life I would have gone on to ask other questions like "well how do you think she feels?" but I guess there wasn't enough time. There were more pressing matters at hand. We were discussing the shoes we were wearing. Apparently we thought it was amazing we were both wearing Toms shoes (tomsshoes.com) and actually had the same pattern.

Talk about a gigantic dose of randomness. ?!?!

Or was it?

The path in the forest

I had to sit down and get this out before I forget it all.

In my dream last night, Neil and I were walking in a forest, along a path. Only, I was Neil and he was me (but he didn't look like me). He was frumpier than me and I hope to geez that it's not how I look through his eyes. ha. Anyway, I digress ...

So we're walking down this path and up ahead of us skips a little girl wearing a white sundress. She's one year old. She has pudgy cheeks, a pudgy body, an adorable smile and slanted, twinkling blue eyes. Her hair is pale blond, thin and wispy in the wind. She's ours. And obviously she must be pretty amazing if at the age of one she can skip and sing at the same time.

I have dreams all the time, but they rarely allow me to remember them. I usually just wake up feeling pleasant or curious without knowing why. When I actually do recall a dream, it sticks with me. Like the set of recurring dreams I used to have when I first met Neil ... I'm sitting on the exam table in a OBGYN office and the doctor is telling me I'm infertile and will never have children.

Maybe this new dream was my psyche's way of telling me that the first dream was a liar. Or maybe my woman hormones just need to lay off the juice.