Nightmares

If you are a close friend in real life, you know that I have crazy dreams.  And by crazy, I really mean certifiably insane dreams.  All my life, I've been one of those people who remembers my dreams--I actually still remember dreams that I had as a kid.  I've heard that this means I don't sleep soundly, and I'm going with it, given that I'm always tired (or at least it's a good excuse to whine about being tired...). Whatever the reason, my dreams are vivid, realistic, and most often a little on the bizarre side.

At about 2:00 am this morning, I woke up from one of the worst dreams of my life.

I woke up whimpering--crying without actual tears--and so profoundly sad that it took more than a few minutes to realize that I had actually been asleep.  I woke up from any parent's worst dream--that my child had died.

 Now, in reality, I know NOTHING about that kind of pain. I have friends who have lost children, and I absolutely in no way claim to understand their anguish. All I have is my imagination--and the memory of what it felt like for those 10 weeks we thought Amelia wasn't going to survive.  I can tell you, just from that alone--this is the worst kind of tragedy.  Losing the love of your life (and your kids ARE the loves of your life)...it's excruciating. Soul-emptying. True devastation.

I dreamed that Amelia died.  We were planning her funeral. The dream was so vivid that I remember holding her, feeling her in my arms as she passed away quietly. I remember going through pictures on our computer to create the funeral program, sobbing violently.  In this dream, my mother was alive, and she was crying with me.  She and I watched a forest burn in the distance...symbolic probably of the loss we were experiencing.  It was gut-wrenching on many levels.

I wish I could say I have no idea where this dream came from...but I can't.  This is definitely a latent fear of mine.  Because we don't know what is "wrong" with Amelia, we don't know anything about her life expectancy.  Whatever causes her many conditions is so rare that it can't be identified. All we know is that her brain isn't completely developed, her kidneys are damaged (but maintaining nicely), her heart has some abnormalities, and all of her--every organ, every nerve--is TINY.  She's doing well, but we have no idea of what to expect in the future. We may never know.  That, in and of itself, is the stuff of nightmares.

I wish I was a glass half-full kind of person who could really "live in the moment", not waste any time worrying about the "what might happens"--but that's not me, friends.  I'm a worrier by nature (see this post).  If I'm being honest, my fears kept me from totally bonding with Amelia right away. I was so fragile after the whirlwind surrounding her birth that I just couldn't risk falling in love with her and having her snatched away abruptly.  Fortunately, she's just incredibly lovable, and after the raging post-birth hormones finally evened out,  I fell hardcore in love with the tough little one-pounder.

It doesn't affect me every day. I don't waste time stressing over this on a daily basis. Instead, it just sneaks up on me at odd moments--like when I'm watching her play with her toys, making them talk to one another, or when I watch her manipulate the iPad with the ease of an adult--and for that moment, I'm overcome with the fear of losing her.  She's my heart, that little one.

Cross your fingers for a good night's sleep tonight.