dream of the house and bird

A few weeks ago I dreamed that my husband and I were downtown walking around, looking for a place to camp. He pointed out a shady spot on a sidewalk (ha!). We walked past an old, dilapidated timber house that looked abandoned. I was fascinated by it, wondering what it used to look like. So we stepped into the front room to look around, and suddenly it started morphing, like it was going back in time. I saw the original wallpaper start to appear - dark red with a velvet fleur de lis pattern - and then the structure built up around us. Suddenly a jeep pulled up and I thought "Someone lives here?" We got out of there before they saw us, and I noticed a young boy in the kitchen. We kept walking, and as I turned around to look at the house again I saw it was completely restored, remodeled, and there was a big family gathering going on. Further down the block, my husband walked up to me holding a little bird on his finger. It had pretty yellow feathers all down its back. I let it rest its feet on my finger and I fell in love with it, so we decided to adopt it. I remember wishing very much that I could give it my blood so it would be a part of me.

It's one of those dreams that are just crazy enough for me to pay attention. To what, I don't know yet.

the redemption

The other night, I was sitting in a restaurant with two women -- one a good friend who'd supported me through my entire motherhood journey, the other a friend of hers who'd joined our prayer study. We were talking about dreams and visions, and I recalled one that I haven't shared in this blog before.

On a random day at the gym, early in my pregnancy, I saw a vision. First I saw a woman with long, dark hair (who I assumed was my OB-GYN) delivering our baby. Next, I saw my husband in a t-shirt holding the baby. I understood clearly that God was telling me Everything Will Be Okay. Visions for me are very rare, so I paid attention and was shocked to the core.

Here is how things came full circle to fulfill my vision.

On a snowy evening the day after Mother's Day 2010, I went to the hospital where I learned I was experiencing my first miscarriage. Days later, I went to a clinic across the street from my OB-GYN to have my D&C to clear out the tissue and prevent infection. The doctor who helped me had long, dark hair and empathetic eyes. It was first day of the worst year of my life.

At 5:00 a.m. in late February 2012, I began the labor pains that, 22 hours later, would bring me my son. My OB was unavailable that day.

Guess who showed up to deliver him?

As I told this ironic part of my story, the other friend (who may just become mine as well) spoke up and told me that as she was listening, one word flashed through her mind. Redemption.

That word was for me.

Redemption from the ashes of my miscarriages to the miracle of our child. Redemption from the pain and guilt of delaying parenthood to the humbling, awe-inspiring bliss of overcoming infertility.

The dictionary has seven definitions for Redemption:
1. an act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake, or the state of being redeemed.
2. deliverance; rescue.
3. Theology. deliverance from sin; salvation.
4. atonement for guilt.
5. repurchase, as of something sold.
6. paying off, as of a mortgage, bond, or note.
7. recovery by payment, as of something pledged.

Redeemed. Rescued. Atoned. Recovered. All that and more, Lord, all that and more.

anxiety and the search for a house

The good news is we sold our condo. The great news is we're shopping for a house. The bad news (if you can call it that) is we have 9 shopping days to do it. We looked at 5 houses yesterday and they ranged from mildly disappointing to holy-shit-this-basement-looks-like-a-scene-from-a-horror-movie.
So we decided to up the ante a little and look for a slightly higher price point. The photos look far more promising, so I'll be doing some exploring this morning while my husband is at work.

Meanwhile, said husband is in the middle of a very difficult negotiation with a potential employer. Talk about anxious.

Last night, despite my exhaustion, I drank my hot milk and took a melatonin that's mixed with some mineral that promises to provide stress relief. I wasn't taking any chances. I slept fairly well, but early this morning I had a nightmare that my computer started scanning and downloading people in the room -- kidnapping them into another dimension where I ganged up with members of my church, no less, to rescue them. LOL Maybe I've been watching Dr. Who a little too much.

ocean dreams

I have been dreaming about the ocean about every other month for a long time now. Not years, but certainly the last couple of years. Every one is unique and beautiful in some ways, but all hold an element of inescapable danger.

The other night, I dreamed that I went down to the beach to join a friend. I noticed that the shore dropped sharply just where the water met the sand. We were talking when I noticed the water level swelling - either the tide was coming in fast or it was a wall of water heading toward us - so I turned to head back, away from the shoreline. It was a hard, uphill climb but I made it to the top of that slope.

But then the landscape in front of me began to undulate just like the waves. It reminded me of an animated movie or Japanese painting, and it was actually beautiful in its own way but I realized I was trapped between the ocean and the land. All I could do was lay down and watch the waves of sea and land move above me as I stared in bewilderment. I didn't drown, though, so I guess that's good.

"Do You Want to be Pregnant?"

Hm.....

Hm.....

Had to think about this one for a while. DH asked me this after another bout of bitching and raving about exhaustion, indigestion, poorly fitting clothes, blah blah blah... Well mostly it's the indigestion. It's hard to be enthusiastic about anything if your list of edible foods can be counted on less than 10 fingers.

But anyway, back to my pondering. Here's why I don't want to be pregnant: the risk. The fear. The pain. The uncertainty. The checking of the underwear every time I go to the restroom (yes, still). The knowledge that anything can go wrong at any time, and really - we never run out of things to worry about. No real clearing of the woods, just milestones and minimizing risk and holding on to hope.

Here's why I do want it: To have the experience of giving birth just once. To see the joy on my husband's face when he holds his daughter or son for the first time. To realize the knowledge that it really is possible. To see my own flesh and blood running around the living room.

Part of me wants to give the big "ha! you were WRONG!" finger to the Specialist, but that's just dumb. Docs don't deal in absolutes, just percentages. So just what constitues a miracle in the eyes of a medical professional anyway? I can't prove anything to anyone. I can only tell my story and hope that it gives someone hope beyond their circumstances, to know that the end of something isn't the end of everything.

Last night I had a dream. DH and I were in a bedroom somewhere and I looked at a window. I noticed there was a recycling trash bin just below the window inside the room, which I thought looked kind of tacky. I looked again, and there was a mist of blood hovering over the trash bin. I looked again, and saw that the mist had been replaced by a slow-moving cloud hovering over the bin - I looked closely, noticing the nuances of the cloud as wisps curled around the edges. Then the cloud floated up to the ceiling. For some reason, I blew gently on the cloud. It began to dissipate, and then a small figure emerged from the cloud - it was a newborn baby, which was human but looked pale and otherworldly like the cloud. The baby began to float down, and I said "See? It's a baby!" to DH. He was leery, but the baby drifted down into the crook of my right arm. I held the baby, smiling. DH touched the baby's forehead, then its lips - and the baby caught his finger in its mouth in a gentle, sort of affectionate way. And then I woke up.

The next dream was one of those fast-action dreams with translucent tigers floating down a walkway in an Asian spa that changed plots every few minutes. Weird. Oh well.

Angry and Doubtful: Hormones or Intuition?

Having a very hard day (and it’s barely 9:00 a.m. here). On a close friend's advice, I called my doc to explain my paranoia and they added an interim ultrasound – I go in tomorrow morning. My own doc is going to do the scan.

Meanwhile, I’ve been having some serious anger issues. I could chalk it up to hormones, but I have had at least four dreams in the past couple weeks where I was absolutely furious at someone for something. They were all justified in my dreams, but it’s still unusual. I told DH that I’m apparently really mad. I just didn’t know why. And when I’m not feeling mad, I’m not feeling much of anything.

This morning I woke up and realized why I’m angry: I’m angry because I can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t going to work out, and I am sick to death of this no-man’s-land of not knowing the outcome. So my mind is constantly playing out scenarios of my reaction to another failed pregnancy, and none of them are good. In fact they kind of frighten me.

So there I was this morning, crying at the table with DH trying to soothe me as I explained this inescapable torment. It truly will be a miracle if I hear a heartbeat and see accurate measurements tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Faith and Doubt are Hand in Hand

Yesterday I went in for my annual lady checkup. The last time I was in that office was when I had my second miscarriage, and the same person (the nurse practitioner) saw me then and now. She was wonderfully engaging and helpful, and wanted to know what all I'd been through since she'd last seen me. I gave her the lowdown – therapy, yoga, small group, this blog, and anti-depressants – and she was very empathetic. She remarked basically on how so much statistically and medically is against me according to the results of the fertility lab work. It sank my heart just a little, and I didn't ask for more details. All I remembered was "egg quality issue" and that was all I needed (wanted) to know.  I talked about how critical the support of our church family and others has been, and added "I don't know where you fall on this spectrum, but I'm going to tell you anyway: If it hadn't been for Jesus reaching straight into my heart, I would have DIED."

I left the doctor's office and headed home where I would put in another hour of work. I tuned into K-LOVE as I usually do, and praised God for preserving me and loving me. As I turned off the freeway, a song came on written by a man who's young daughter had died. I've heard it before, but this time I was bawling before it ended, my own pain fresh once again. It acknowledges the confusion and pain of grief and loss, even as it looks for the hope and promise of spending eternity with our loved ones. And that's how I feel pretty much. I told my small group last night about my house dream and about this day, and said that I feel like I'm riding on two tracks: faith and doubt. Why can't I just let go? Trust implicitly? Truthfully, I don't think that is something I can actually do. I believe that this is a supernatural thing that only God can do in me.

Heaven is the Face of a Little Girl

Steven Curtis Chapman

Heaven is the face of a little girl

With dark brown eyes

That disappear when she smiles.

Heaven is the place

Where she calls my name

Says, “Daddy please come play with me for awhile.”

Chorus:

God, I know, it's all of this and so much more,

But God, You know, that this is what I'm aching for.

God, you know, I just can't see beyond the door.

So right now...

Heaven is the sound of her breathing deep,

Lying on my chest, falling fast asleep while I sing.

And Heaven is the weight of her in my arms,

Being there to keep her safe from harm while she dreams

And God, I know, it's all of this and so much more,

But God, You know, that this is what I'm longing for

God, you know, I just can't see beyond the door.

Bridge:

But in my mind's eye I can see a place

Where Your glory fills every empty space.

All the cancer is gone,

Every mouth is fed,

And there's no one left in the orphans' bed.

Every lonely heart finds their one true love,

And there's no more goodbye,

And no more not enough,

And there's no more enemy.

Heaven is a sweet, maple syrup kiss

And a thousand other little things I miss with her gone.

Heaven is the place where she takes my hand

And leads me to You,

And we both run into Your arms.

Oh God, I know, it's so much more than I can dream.

It's far beyond anything I can conceive.

So God, You know, I'm trusting You until I see

Heaven in the face of my little girl,

Heaven in the face of my little girl.

Oh Jesus, make my dreams come true.

Dream of the Landlord

I had the most interesting dream last night. My husband and I moved into an apartment (which initially took the form of the one my mom and I lived in when we first moved to CO) and we were all excited to be there. 

Then I started looking around and noticed that the place wasn’t clean. Whoever lived there before we moved in had left some of their stuff – old stuff – lying around. The more I looked around, the more I saw. There were chunks of flooring ripped up and missing. And the front door didn’t close all the way. In fact, it was propped open by a neighbor who was borrowing a torchiere lamp to light the hallway. 

Meanwhile, I heard a lot of hammering noises like construction that seemed to be getting louder. I asked the neighbors about the condition of our apartment and they told me not to worry – the landlord was coming through and fixing everything. That was the hammering I had heard. I was relieved and happy, so we set about starting to move the old stuff out and organize. As I wandered through the place, I found that the previous resident also left behind three or four dogs and a couple of cats that needed to be fed, so I started tending to them.

 

To me, it feels like an allegory of the past six months of my life. I especially like the dream telling me that the landlord is coming to fix my house.

Dreaming

Like my Blogger ID says, I truly am a dreamer. I don't mean the kind that has spent every nickel of a winning lottery ticket a thousand times in my head - I mean I have dreams. Yes, yes we all have dreams. But sometimes mine seem to go way beyond the normal empty-out-the-trash-of-my-subconscious.

Trouble is, I never really figure out what they mean, and I would rather not turn to some metaphysical book with neatly defined dream definitions. Why? Two reasons: first, as a follower of Christ I take seriously the Bible's admonition to avoid this source of information; second, I believe dreams are too personal and individual to be subject to one author's definition. Finally (okay, that makes three) there are countless examples of God speaking to people through dreams and visions in the Bible. So when I am considering a dream, I often measure it through the lens of God's will. That doesn't mean that I think every dream is a message straight from the top, though.

Anyway, so in the last few weeks I've had some really interesting dreams but they've been snippets of larger ones. In the first, I was walking around some villa outside on a spring day with a group of friends while carrying a branch covered in flowers. Suddenly a group of bees started swarming around the branch, diving back and forth presumably to pollinate them. I was scared, because I really hate being stung, but I noticed they weren't paying any attention to me - just the flowers.

In the second, a week later, I was at a party with some friends. I looked down at the coffee table in front of me and there was this baby boy, wrapped up in a big brown hooded jacket, looking all perfect and healthy and adorable and stuff. I just stared at him, wondering whose baby this was, and he was staring back at me. I think I smiled at him, but don't quite remember.

In the third, just the other night. I suddenly had a mouthful of big, soft, round balls - like giant tapioca beads. They were in my cheeks, like I'd been growing them in there. I was confused, so I took them out and looked at them in the palm of my hand: each one was milky white and somewhat transparent, and held what looked like a tiny seed in the center. I carried them with me to a lab (which was conveniently down a hallway) and was about to have someone analyze them and tell me what they were. Stupid alarm went off before I could find out.

Last week, my therapist told me that dreams tend to mean whatever we, as the dreamer, think they mean. As you can imagine, my mind drifts to images of fertility, with pollinating bees, babies, and eggs. Does it mean anything, or is it a manifestation of stress and the fact that, no matter what's going on in my life, my current state of unresolved infertility is never far from my mind like a ball tied to the end of a long rubber band?

I actually look forward to dreaming. Sometimes my dreams are more enjoyable than my daytime life - others just make me curious and confused. In fact, that's the one thread of commonality between these three: confusion. I'll keep dreaming though...