July 21, 2006
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boring recounting of dream alert:
Couldn’t make the picture work. If you’d like to see a visual/cartoon representation of what I look like this morning you may click here.
Well, I eventually got some sleep. No more night terrors (where you wake yourself up from the dream-screaming/crying) just weird dreams.
I dreamed there was this baby and it was my baby but I hadn’t known I had given birth to it. Someone else had been caring for him/her, but I felt this huge love immediately. The baby was at least 3 months and very, very sick. He/she had terrible infected psoriasis and for some reason I knew he/she was very malnourished. There were two other women in the room and they were trying to help me figure this out. I hadn’t lactated in years but in my dream I knew I needed to breastfeed this baby or he/she would die.*
One women called a lactation consultant and was waiting for a call back. I knew that some women who have adopted have stimulated lactation by giving the baby the breast before bottle-feeding (even though they’re not getting anything). The problem is, though, that babies suck differently on bottles than is necessary to stimulate milk flow. I was worried. But I tried it, and there was milk! But the milk came too fast… the baby wasn’t able to take it in. This whole time I was so worried I was practically freaking out, but calm on the surface. Eventually the baby got fed and I was so relieved. So after holding the baby for a while I set him/her down to crawl (slightly older now) and worried if he/she was going to make it, while I called the specialist.
The baby ran away. I was frantic. The other woman came back with him/her, now a small toddler. And I was so sad because I knew the baby didn’t know he/she belonged with me. How was I going to do this? These things take time. What if the baby died? What if he/she ran away?
Sometimes sleeping is overrated.
*I don’t have any of those “formula is poison” prejudices… ugly that, I was verbally assaulted by some faux-hippy asshole when bottle-feeding my son out in public once. I had just gone through hell trying to make breastfeeding work and was feeling great shame about not making it. I was so angry, and hurt. People who are militant like that can rot the fuck in hell with Rache’s boot up their ass.
Comments (12)
i blame hipmama for your insomnia.
actually, i blame it for everything evil in the world.
boot up the ass, word.
also, cuz, like, i did actually read your post, i have dreams like that, too, where i’m either pregnant, or i have a baby, and it’s always a very small baby, but, like, otherwise normal, just miniature. and i’m always simultaneously horrified by/in love with it, becuase like, i totally didn’t want a baby, yet here i seem to have one, you know? and i always wake up from not being able to care for it properly. (and the relief upon waking and finding myself non-pregnant/non-new-mother is unspeakable.) i don’t know what it means, other than i really am done having kids, baha.
once I was in a resturant, and this bitchy little yoga mom was glaring at me for feeding the boy a bottle, because she was so wonderfully breastfeeding her son, while downing several glasses of wine. sure, you’re SO much better than me, I see that now, bitch.
I also had a hell of a time with breastfeeding. it just did not work. it was horrible. I did what I could for weeks and I felt SO much guilt over it. which is stupid. I really hate lactavists. I really do. I’m sorry you had a nightmare.
thank you… I tried so hard to nurse Dylan. But there came the point where I was in so much pain that I couldn’t nurse him and love him. one or the other. I tried EVERYTHING. But at that point I was a crazy woman and only bottle-feeding made it better.
With my next I told the pede I was going to bottle-feed and she talked me into giving the breast another try. It went perfectly and was a beautiful thing so I’m so glad she did… but it wasn’t a morally-charged question, just a matter of giving it a try. I appreciated it.
I’ve met women who had surgical births who didn’t feel like “whole women” because they didn’t give birth vaginally. I met a woman who was having a second baby solely because she wanted a vbac, not a baby. I tried to make her feel better about herself but I don’t think that is something that can happen externally.
It’s so sad to see someone thinking there’s only one road to the place they want to be. But really, in the end, that’s none of my business either. It’s something each person decides for themselves. I want a bigger world than that, for myself.
My mother couldn’t nurse. My brother and I were both C-Sections and bottle-fed…aside from a few issues that have nothing to do with breasts, I think we turned out alright. Contrarywise, MiL nursed all three of her kids…you wanna talk about issues?
Though I’ve never been able to do a vaginal birth, I’ve been able to nurse both boys…but that BS about babies not getting sick as often is just that, BS. As an example, I give you T-Pot.
As far as your dream, I’m not an analyst by a long shot, but something kept screaming at me that the baby represented self-love. You’ve come a long way down a crazy road, and in case noone’s told you today, I’m really proud of all you’ve accomplished for yourself. Continue to nurture you, and everything else will fall into place.
((((((((((HUGS!))))))))))
-M
I was a fokkin’ heifer. Okay? I made so much – - that I started giving the stuff away. The hospital will actually take donations, yanno? I lactated for a freakin’ YEAR after I stopped nursing Starshine Sunbutt. I finally went on the pill just to make it STOP!
It’s why I call my kids parasites – -
Anyway, I can’t stand those hippy types that think they’re all that and a bag o’ chips. I was somewhere with the Silent Shogun, I think it was Laguna Beach, nursing him; when I was joined by another nursing mother. She smiled at me dreamily, and she said “Isn’t this the greatest gift EVER?” I nodded, “Oh hell yeah, you think I can afford formula? If I could, I sure as hell wouldn’t be a host for this parasite!”
Thresh thresh thresh.
oh, and you know what (apropos only of comments of yours i’ve stumbled across lately,) if i were anywhere anywhere at all near you? i would take you to a blood drive and hold your hand and we would bleed together. and then we would go out for ice cream. because dammit, we would deserve some.
AAAAAUUUGHHH! RACHE WANTS MY BLOOOOD!! I knew it…
if we lived anywhere near each other we’d probably do that alpha/beta female thing where we’d be on the same cycle and could call it good.
I usually blame my whacked out dreams on the moon/hormones/alcoholic beverages/spicy foods….but you know what? That doesn’t make them any less weird. My past two dreams I’ve been shot by the mafia while trying to protect someone else. My last strange baby dream – my “baby” was left underneath the bed by someone else and nearly suffocated.
Sometimes I think it would just be better not to dream…
~ S
Man, after reading this entry and the comments thereafter, I give a whole boatload of credit to anyone doing the child-rearing thing. You guys are frickin’ survivors from the sounds of things…
baha, the more likely scenario is that we’d bitch at each other over who gets to the alpha female, and you’d stab me with your hair scissors and i’d kick you in the shins and THEN we would bleed together.
and then go out for ice cream. because dude, it’s ice cream.
I hated those titNazis. My breasts swelled up to beyond 44F (collarbone through armpits) after the birth of my son, hiding my sweet lil pink n virginal-looking nips, so my teeny son (5lb 7) couldn’t find the bloody things and I couldn’t even see them beneath my chin and breastflesh. One midwife twisted a nipple so hard as to make me scream, like it was my fault I couldn’t feed. Ok it was, but you know…