WHAT?!
Yep. Sleep deprivation gave me a homebirth the other morning. With the biggest twist EVA!
I'd been up late the night before, as in all night. I caught about 2 hours of sleep after getting the kids off to school with Hubby and woke up from the most vivid, realistic dream I think I've ever had.
So what did this dream involve?
An unassisted homebirth (no midwife or doctor).
In someone else's home, not mine.
Oh, and baby was a footling breech.
And did I mention that I was a surrogate for my long-time friend, Ashley?
Let me walk you through the weirdness that is my subconscious:
Dream: Unassisted Footling Breech Homebirth by Surrogate
The first thing I remember from the dream is pacing in the kitchen. Of course, it wasn't my kitchen. Like I stated above, I was not at my home.
I was pacing in the kitchen and yelling "Ashley?! I think you'd better get in here!"
Ashley is one of my oldest friends. We've known each other since 7th grade, sharing secrets, heartache, love, and everything that little girls share with their best friends.
I turn around and look at her mom and say, "She REALLY need to get down here. I think it's almost time."
At this point, my dream self looked down and realized that I was obviously very pregnant. OH. So that's what all the urgency is about! I must be in labor.
So her mom yells out, "Ash, you better get down here before Nik pops this kid out on my rug!"
Ok, so I'm in her house with Ashley, in labor. Where is my husband and my kids?
I look down at the floor and see the rug, so I immediately move off to the side as Ashley's mom comes and moves the rug out of the room. Then she goes over and starts digging out a bag that has medical supplies in it.
Huh? Why does she have medical supplies?
Just then, I feel a contraction rip through me and I scream, "Ash! I mean it! Get your ass down here!!"
Then I hear Hubby calling from the basement, "Do you want me to come up? Or Chad (Ashley's husband) can come up?"
Just as I open my mouth, I hear Ashley yell from upstairs, "No, I'm done helping Hunter with his calculus, I'm coming down now! You and Chad stay with the kids."
So Hubby is downstairs with Ashley's hubby and all of our kids. That means my 3 kids and her 4 kids. Wait, no, Her oldest is upstairs. And he's old enough for Calculus? When did that happen, he's in middle school?!
Ashley comes hopping down the stairs and into the kitchen, where I am still pacing and eyeing her mom as she is digging out medical supplies.
"Nik, you want to go to the living room into the pool?" Ashley says.
"No, I need to walk. I just want to walk," I reply.
Wait, pool? So there's a birthing pool? I'm having this baby at her mom's house?
"Are you sure you don't want me to call anyone else?" her mom asks.
"No! We've got this!" I say. "We've done all our research, we've taken the classes, we're all prepared."
Ashley continues, "And who would you call, Mom? All the people you would call are the ones who trained us. Nik's going to birth this baby and I'm going to help. It is my baby after all!"
Huh? I'm having Ashley's baby? I'm a surrogate? Why, she's just as fertile as I am! Just as my inner logical self is trying to figure out why Ashley needs a surrogate, my dream self snaps me back to the dream-reality and announces:
"I think we're about ready to have this baby!!"
Ashley comes up behind me and tries to support me to guide me in to the living room. We make it almost to the doorway and I yell out, "We're not going to make it, I can feel the baby coming now!"
I stop walking and lean forward to look around my huge belly, at which point, I see a foot dangling.
"CRAP! The little booger is breech!" I exclaim.
How did we not know baby is breech? We should have been able to tell ahead of time, especially if we had training. Maybe labor progressed too quickly? Maybe baby flipped at the last minute and we didn't notice?
Ashley comes up in front of me to support me as I slowly lower myself on to my knees. My dream-self seemed to be totally in control, knowing exactly what to do. After getting down on my knees, I leaned forward, using the seat of the kitchen chair to support myself, while Ashley moved around behind me to watch for any signs of complications.
As we are both watching baby's free leg move as the other foot descends, we hear her mom say, "Geez, girls, so nice of you to mess up my kitchen floor, but at least the placenta will already be in the kitchen for us to encapsulate!" And Ashley and I both broke out in laughter.
I look down and realize that baby's arms are free, which must have happened when I was laughing at her mom's sarcasm! So I tell Ashley to get ready for the baby, then gently bear down, birthing this little body into the arms of her mama.
At this point, my dream fast forwarded a bit. I was suddenly laying in bed in the guest room, surrounded by people.
"So, how's everyone doing?" I hear Hubby say as he enters the room. "I wanted to give the family some time up here with you and the new baby, but the kids are dying to see you."
I turned to see my girls and Monkey standing in the doorway with concerned looks on their faces.
"It's ok," I say. "Come on in guys! Ashley is just nursing and I'm relaxing."
So I was a surrogate for Ashley, but she induced relactation to nurse baby. Interesting.
And suddenly my kids were talking with Ashley's kids, while our husbands were sitting at the end of the bed talking with us. As I was laying on one side of the bed, Ashley was laying beside me, nursing this new little person we had brought into the world together.
Suddenly I hear her mom yell across the house, "Girls! You guys need your rest, make them kids get down here and finish cleaning up the mess you left on my kitchen floor!!" And the room erupted into giggles again as the kids begrudgingly headed to help in the kitchen.
As I said, super detailed strange dream. I know that I was wearing a blue dress. Ashley was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. It was a beautiful spring day and we had all the windows open, so I could hear the birds outside. There are a million more details I could give because it was that vivid! All the way down to the wood floors in the kitchen and the container of dark chocolate covered dried cherries that were on the counter. Which is funny because that was one of the things I ate a ton of after Monkey was born.
Now, it is important to note that along with sleep deprivation, I'm sure the surrogacy theme in my dream came from 2 places. First, I've been following the journey of a friend who is on the road to surrogacy at her blog My Oven. Their Bun. She is in the very beginning stages, but I've been reading lots about it the last month.
Second, like most young girls, Ashley and I talked a LOT when we were younger about what it would be like when we grew up and had babies. Being that we were Lifetime Movie junkies, it was decided that we would be surrogates for one another if needed. So it is no wonder that my sleep deprivation state took my recent time spent reading about surrogates and tossed in my childhood discussions with Ashley.
But to turn out with an unassisted breech birth? Totally blew my mind.
I texted Ashley that morning to share the weirdness and she was just as amused as me!
So there you have it. I had a homebirth experience in my dream that reinforced everything that I know about birth.
Birth is normal.
Breech is a variation of normal.
Birth is instinctual.
Educate yourself for best results.
Surround yourself with a fantastic support team.
Go with the flow.
Hope you have enjoyed this journey into my subconscious state. And a big thank you to Ashley for making a guest appearance.
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