Weird Dreams Are Made Of This

I've always heard about the dreams pregnant women have, but when I had my first, not long after we found out we were pregnant, I was surprised with how vivid they are. However, I should probably preface this by saying I've always had weird dreams. Even before pregnancy, my husband would be either amazed or horrified by my recounting the night's dream activity. Making Wilford Brimley cry. Being chased by the police, only to find I was being chased by The Police. All weird and vivid.

But pregnant dreams? Odd. Just odd. My first actually produced the nickname we call Baby E. It began with my husband and I at a new church, which kind of looked like a Sam's Club with pews. Baby E #1 was a newborn, and I was inexplicably pregnant with Baby E #2, and needed to use the restroom. I left Baby E #1 with Tom, and went to the restroom. When I came back, Tom was there, but the baby was not.

"Where's the baby?" I asked.

"Oh, some nice old ladies that run the nursery took him," Tom said, nonchalantly.

I was livid (in fact, I was still a little peeved with him when I woke up). "I haven't even seen the nursery or met these women. And he's a newborn. I am going to go get him back - RIGHT NOW."

So I wander around until I find a door that says, "Nursery." I walk in, and there are three little old ladies sitting at a card table. No babies to be seen anywhere. I ask about mine, and one of the little old ladies says, "Oh, you mean Hex?"

"That's not the baby's name!" I say.

"Oh, the baby just looked like a Hex. That's what we call the baby," another old lady said.

"I would like my baby back," I insist. "It's too little to be in the nursery."

The old ladies acquiesced, and said they'd go get "little Hex" and be right back. I waited. And waited. And waited. No baby. So I decide to go look myself. I walk into the nursery, and well, all the babies are in the kind of lockers they use in locker rooms. I find my baby, and go to walk out the door. A little old lady appears and says, "Oh, you found Hex!"

At that point, I woke up. After telling the story to my husband, we both somehow began calling the baby Hex - which I suppose is marginally preferable to "it."

Lately, my dreams have involved us buying houses that can charitably called fixer-uppers, and more accurately called falling down shacks. I then, in my dream, proceed to dismantle them, paint them, replumb them, or rewire them. Sometimes all of those things. I then wake up more exhausted than I was when I went to bed - and why not? I've been doing manual labor all night.

So what kind of crazy dreams did you have while pregnant? Please tell me they go away soon!

Bethany Erickson is 23 weeks pregnant and the wife of Texas Health Resources web editor Tom Erickson.