Processing

I dreamed of you. You were not yet born but I knew you. Curled deep within me, limbs folded in the tight surrounds, not uncomfortable but close. Your perfect lips moved as if to suck the fingertips that brushed them, knowing even now before you'd taken your first breath how to suckle. Your eyes closed, lids fluttering sometimes in response to the light on my belly.

I dreamt of lying in warm afternoon light, skin exposed so that you could feel the warmth too, casting you in the rose tinted glow. Your father talking to you, worshipping you even though he had never met you. Reverent at the sight of my pale taut skin, housing you, keeping you safe.

Your hair, long and dark, almost black, swished in the warm water that surrounded you, tickling your translucent ears. Your dark eyelashes matching your hair, hiding the eyes that perfectly matched mine beneath.

We were waiting for you in the sunshine. Your father and I, dreaming of you. Of our life with you. How all would be different when you came. Hands over my skin, feeling you stretch beneath. Breath catching as I had no room to inhale. Rubbing the outline of tiny feet.

I dreamed of you coming, of birthing you as your father cried. Of holding you wet and slippery and warm against my chest bathed in pain and joy. Of the damp ringlets on your head matching mine. Of your first cry. Of tiny long fingers that wrapped around my own, snaring my heart for eternity.

It was so real I woke in the cool darkness of reality and ran my hand over the softness of my belly, tracing the indent of the pale silver scars that 3 pregnancies have left and felt a tear trickle down my cheek while my throat burned. I know that this dream was stupendously easy to interpret. After playing with a newborn on the weekend and also now that we cannot have any more children there is obviously some adjusting and processing to go through. But for a second it was so real. I felt you. I loved you.