Dreams

She’s fallen asleep in her car seat, hand pressed against her cheek-her favorite sleeping position.  I don’t want to wake her but I can’t get enough of her.  So I slowly take her out of her car seat and snuggle her in the crook of my arm.  She starts to coo, I say her name softly, “Avery, Avery.”  She slowly opens her eyes, still slightly crossed as she tries to focus, and looks deep into my eyes.

I melt.  I am so in love.  I kiss her sweet, chubby cheeks.  Then, I hear the gas and feel the diaper start to fill.  It keeps going and we have a blow-out.  I call for my husband to get the changing table ready.  I laugh as I bring her to her room to get changed grabbing a new diaper and a new onesie.  What a mess, but still we are so in love.

I bring her into her room; yell at my husband to close the dog out of the room.  We undress her and I notice her umbilical cord has fallen off while she was gone.  I smile at her beautiful pink smooth stomach.  We laugh about how much it intimidated it us when it was still there and are thankful she is past that stage.  I grab a diaper out of her monkey diaper holder, pampers, with little bears on the front.  And then it happens…I wake up.

I wake up to a dark, quiet bedroom, my husband sleeping next to me, dog sleeping on my feet and an empty spot where her bassinet use to be.  I wake up to realize, it was only just a dream.  My world comes crumbling down all over again.  For a few minutes, in my dream, my baby was back with me and I was so happy to be caring for my little girl. 

The dream was so real.  I could touch her, feel her, and smell her and her diaper.   In the dream, I realize she has been gone but I don’t acknowledge where she has been only that she is now back, minus her umbilical cord.  The dream was so incredibly real.  Every detail of our house, her car seat, her room, her just as I remember them.  Her diaper blowout, I could feel the warmth of her diaper in my dream.  So very real and yet, only a dream.

Oh how I wish it was the opposite.  I wish the past 11 weeks were a dream, well a horrible nightmare, and that when I wake up, she would be here, messy diapers and all.  I am crushed when I awake from these dreams.  Forced back into a reality where she is gone.  I lay in bed wishing myself back to sleep so I can dream the dream again, for longer this time.  But of course it doesn’t work and I am left wide awake and emptier than before. 

I love these dreams, I wish I had more.  They are worth every moment of the heartache I feel once I am awake.  Just to feel like I am able to have another moment with her, it’s all worth it.  I hope I dream again of her soon.  Until then, I will focus on my memories and the happy dreams.  I will focus on remembering her-everything about her.  She is my beautiful daughter and I cannot wait to be with her again so I will no longer have to hold onto my dreams and memories, I will be able to hold onto her. 

Sleeping with her hand on her face. 

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