Dream On; or, Past as Prologue

Back in September, in the early weeks of the cycle that would lead to my one and only pregnancy, I had a series of dreams. Most of the details are unimportant. Suffice it to say that various surprising and nonsensical events occurred in a variety of surprising and nonsensical locations. More significantly, the person in these locations and participating in these events was me-- a happily, healthily, robustly pregnant me. A pregnant me surrounded by all the other pregnant ladies I knew at the time.

Those were the first dreams I'd had in the seven months we'd been trying to conceive in which I was pregnant. It felt like a sign. And sure enough, a few weeks later I realized I was in Lucky Cycle Seven. My role as seer of dream visions seemed secured.

Of course, Cycle Seven turned out to be rather unlucky. And my dreams gave me no indication of that. No anxieties about the pregnancy. No prophesied miscarriages. No warnings.

In the subsequent months I have had many dreams: some happy, some sad, some strange, some dull. I had a dream in which I gave birth to a rubbery, dead child a few weeks after the miscarriage. I've had dreams about the pregnant women in my life giving birth or getting divorced or talking about their pregnancies. But I have not had a dream in which I am pregnant again--happily pregnant, confidently pregnant--like those first prophetic ones. And through these past few months, through these last four post-miscarriage cycles, as much as I've hoped and feared and swung between brisk assurance and downright despair, deep inside I've suspected that I won't, that I can't get pregnant again until I have the right kind of dream.

The kind of dream I had two nights ago.

Lawyer Guy and I were in the waiting room of a doctor's office. A doctor I had never met before approached me and said the words I long to hear: "You're pregnant." She knew this, she explained, because I kept standing on one leg without wobbling, which showed that my center of gravity had shifted (clearly some of my recent yoga classes were intruding into this dream). She offered to call my usual gyn in to do an ultrasound and suggested I might be carrying twins. When Dr. B (my real life doctor) arrived, she performed the u/s and told me that even though it was too early to see anything, she could tell that this was a singleton pregnancy, non-ectopic, and going to be perfectly healthy and fine. Then I woke up.

On the one hand, it's interesting to see how my subconscious feelings about pregnancy have changed since the miscarriage. My earlier pregnancy dreams were all about me waddling around, rubbing my huge belly and feeling that pregnant lady glow (and getting that pregnant lady attention). This dream was about the reassurance that I won't have another miscarriage. It was a magical vision of the medical community as 100% accurate, of my body as capable and healthy. It was about learning I was pregnant and feeling joy and confidence that the first trimester will likely never have for me again.

And on the other hand...well, I'm a complete fool. This dream has given me so much hope. Being pregnant this cycle seems possible because of this dream. Seems almost...inevitable.

I can handle this. I have enough of that hard-won self-preserving pessimism left to keep myself from anticipating too much. No buying onesies and What to Expect for me. Another failed cycle after this build up will be hard, no doubt, but not any harder than what I've been through already. I can pick myself up and go on, finally rid of the stupid superstitions that have wormed their way into my normally sensible brain. Accepting that dreams and signs have no place in a world of IVF and CBEFMs, that there's nothing inevitable about making a baby.

But I would rather be right than sensible.