Self-portrait: a dream

 {when there is no appropriate photo}

me: post run

 

I dreamed again last night that I was pregnant.  Baby #4.  It picked up as I walked into the hospital, in no apparent distress, in labor.  I loved the whole process of having babies, the labor, the epidurals.  Pregnancy on the other hand for nine months was no cakewalk but I'm getting off-topic.

 

This labor was slow unlike the other three.  I waited and wandered around the hospital between mild contractions.  I was intermittently aware that I was hooked up to an IV but then at times it had gone missing.  My Chinese doctor at one point was philosophizing and pontificating on the topic of preventive medicine and outlining the steps one should take to properly care for oneself illegibly on a piece of paper as he reclined on a pile of pillows.  His words made no logical sense but I knew in my mind what he was trying to say.  He spoke to my youngest about her eczema and her "pool foot" problem (some of you mothers may be familiar).

 

'Take care of yourself outright and you won't get sick' was his message.  Got it.  She listened, nodded.  My husband wandered somewhere in the building.  I told my doctor the story about the neurologist of a former patient, a man my husband had gone to high school with. We had discussed him at dinner, which is the only way he made it into my dream, I'm sure.  The story was about how he had taken his dad's Delorean out for a joy ride with some of his friends while in high school and got busted.  I told it like I was there. I was on a brown leather couch. Random.

 

When labor didn't progress I looked at my belly profile in the mirror.  The baby was still high.  She moved, turned and faced me straight on, her features protruding through my skin clear as if I looked right at her.  I saw her eyes, nose, open mouth as if in a scream, all fingers and toes.  She was huge.  And breach.  Her arms and legs were at ninety degree angles in a pose as if to say, "Get me out of here!"  I remember thinking how much I didn't want a cesarean.

 

Then I painted a picture frame that I liked the worn look of prior to painting. I was mad that I had ruined it by starting to paint it. I used paper towels instead of a brush.  They stuck to the glass of the frame and it became one huge, goopy mess.  I woke up.

 

What does it all mean?  And please don't tell me I secretly want another baby or my inner child is screaming to be let out.  I blame it on the headache I had when I went to bed.  That is all.