My young adult novel, Life-Like has a life of its own in the world now. It sits patiently waiting in query mailboxes across the country and across the pond. All my years of writing, all my dreams, are in the hands of strangers waiting to be judged. I wrote the best book I could. Some agents will pass, okay, most may, but I am in search of my agent. The one who gets and loves the story. In the meantime, the next story I want to write is growing in my mind, which is a good thing. But I’m having terrible nightmares too.
As some of my followers know I suffer from secondary infertility. We struggled for three years to have a second child. We stopped trying a little over one year ago. Some days I’m better about that loss than others. But what I’m not okay with is having baby dreams. I used to dream about the same baby all the time. In most of the dreams, he is a toe headed little boy, that runs around, playing with the three of us completing our family.
Another vivid dream I had, was me sitting in my bed, cradling a newborn, feeding him a bottle when my mom walks in and smiles. I turn to her and say, “And I was worried.” As if all the years of stress over having a second child were ridiculous. In that dream, I believe my failure to keep a pregnancy should never have haunted me, made me feel less than, broken, hollow, or defeated. Of course I had my son. It was always meant to be.
I can tell you dreams like that crush me. And it’s been a long while since that little boy has appeared to me. But he’s back. If I had any ability to sketch, I’d show you his cherub face and full pouty baby lips. And if I could share how sweet he is, how loving his soul feels I would do that too. In the past two weeks I’ve dreamed about babies at least three times. Twice I saw that little boy. It was a bittersweet reunion.
The third dream was more like a nightmare. I was in labor (‘nough said) and I gave birth to a healthy baby – and then more labor came and I gave birth to a second baby. The second was much bigger than the first, and more robust. I held both and marveled at the differences. Then my mom came in and looked at me and the babies and told me I had to give one up. I was devastated.
Next thing I knew, my 4-year-old little girl was tapping my shoulder and woke me up. It was a shocking transition from dream world to reality and the horror of the choice I had to make clung to me all day. clearly it still affects me. Now I hate it when people tell me my book is my baby. The only thing my infertility and writing have in common is the anxiety they both can cause.
So, what’s a girl to do? I have no idea. I do know I’ll keep writing and I will most likely keep dreaming of babies. But I think I’ll go to bed and pray for sweet dreams and good news. Fingers crossed for both.
