Unbearable: I’ve Officially Lost It — I Dream Of Being Pregnant

trying to conceiveHaving a child is usually a happy time in a woman’s life. Unfortunately, as we wait longer to have children, infertility and trouble conceiving can become a part of the family making process. Unbearable addresses these difficulties.

A couple of nights ago, I woke up clutching my abdomen. I was holding on to my belly like my life depended on it. My husband was staring at me as if I was crazy. I guess I had given a little spasm that woke him up as well. And for the very briefest of moments before the world made sense again, my head was convinced that I was pregnant and I was trying to protect my stomach from anything that might jeopardize the darling little life inside of it.

Then, the dog came into focus at the foot of the bed and I realized that the whole thing was a dream.

I’m sure you’re waiting for a detailed account of my pregnant dream-state. I should tell you about how happy I was, rubbing my tummy and reading to the little one growing in there. I should tell you about the nursery in my head, the one I’ve been decorating for over a year now. It has a Beatrix Potter theme with lots of cream and soft green. (I really have been buying things for this nursery, that’s not just in my head.) We could turn this into a sappy reflection of how wonderful my dream-pregnancy is.

But I’d like to acknowledge something else here. Dreaming myself pregnant officially crossing a line into a whole new type of obsession. It’s possible that I’ve moved past “Trying to Conceive” and into a whole new level of “Crazy Infertile Person.” Is CIP an infertility acronym yet, because we could so make that happen.

It’s no secret that I want to be pregnant. We all know that I’ve convinced myself that I was pregnant, even when I’m really not. It would seem that dreaming of pregnancy shouldn’t be surprising. Or a big deal.

Yet, this dream didn’t feel like just a one-off, completely random mind game while I slept. It wasn’t like that time that you dreamt about having a fight with your boyfriend and then woke up mad at him. It wasn’t the bizarre dream with your high school gym teacher and best friend from kindergarten in an alternate universe. This was a dream that sticks around for a little while. It was a dream that ached in the back of my head throughout the day.

That type of dream seems to demonstrate that my pregnancy obsession has moved past the point where my conscious mind is dealing with it. Now, suddenly, I’m a psychology experiment. Page Freud. My unconscious is struggling at night to keep up with the things I’m ignoring throughout my day. Let’s face it, I’m the crazy dream lady. I’m a CIP.

Infertile people are always warned, “Don’t stress,” or “You just have to relax and stop trying.” I’m past that point now everyone. Sure, I thought those phrases were annoying and condescending before, but now they’re downright impossible. The idea of not stressing over pregnancy is laughable at this point in time. The stress is there, screwing with my head when I sleep.

Unfortunately, there’s only one cure for CIP. And that just doesn’t seem to be in the cards at the moment.

(Photo: Hasloo Group Production Studio/Shutterstock)

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