A Wonderful Dream

I dreamt really vividly last night about the birth of this baby.

It was night and my family were around me, and I'd hardly been labouring for half an hour before a midwife arrived who I didn't know and who seemed nervous and kept wanting to check me constantly. Irritated, I took myself up to the bathroom on my own. In the silence I realised I knew deep down I was really close to meeting my baby. I wished my family were with me, and as if he had heard, my husband came into the room with Jenna and Morgan.

The midwife came upstairs a moment later to find me kneeling on the floor, and started to panic because he could see the baby's head and wanted to get me back downstairs where there was room. I hadn't pushed or felt an urge to push, but I calmly grabbed a relatively clean purple cloth from the laundry to pull underneath me covering the hard floor. Martin was accidentally blocking the overly-attentive midwife from the room. (Our bathroom is ridiculously tiny!)

I reached underneath myself and felt my baby slide out, without one single push. It was the plumpest baby I have ever seen, bigger than any of the others, and looking peaceful and timeless as the newly born often do. The midwife did come in then, and said he wanted to clear the baby's airways, and I laughed and said the baby's airways were already clear, couldn't he see it was breathing, sleeping?

I handed Martin the baby, and we all went downstairs again, me shaking a little and holding tight to Morgan's hand as she was sobbing and smiling. The midwife downstairs said she hadn't heard me pushing, and I said I hadn't, the baby had birthed itself. She asked for her paperwork if we had a girl or a boy and I didn't know (or much care) so I checked, and found she was a girl, curled up there round and warm on Martin's bare shoulder, and then we asked the midwives to leave us for a while.

The dream ended with my entire family sitting together on blankets on the living room floor, silent and content. Baby was in my arms again and wrapped lightly in a knitted blanket. I dreamt the entire labour from first contraction to after the birth, and woke early this morning wondering where my baby was. It was one of the most vivid and detailed dreams I have ever had.