NICU Dreams

Anxiety is common among parents of babies in the NICU.  I'm not going to describe the exact feelings I had initially, because I don't want to relive them.  Suffice it to say that I did not feel myself.  As my body has healed, my anxiety has made its way to my subconscious.  I've had some crazy dreams.

I've repeatedly had dreams of nurses telling me what to do.  They are in my house and waking me up to pump.  The problem is that I actually do wake up convinced that it is time to pump.  Then, I immediately wake up Jerry and tell him frantically that I forgot to wake up on time.  Then I realize I had only been asleep for an hour or so apologize to my husband and make my way back to bed.  I told a nurse about these dreams and she said, "Those sound more like nightmares."

One night, I dreamed that Joshua had come home, but I couldn't find him in the house.  This led to a partially awake/ partially asleep search through the whole house.  He was in the pile of blankets next to Jerry who was sleeping.  I was exasperated at how careless Jerry was being!  Again, I came to my senses and crawled back in bed.  Luckily I didn't wake my husband up this time.

Then there was the dream when I was a nurse.  To me this was the most terrifying of all.  I am not cut out for any medical profession.

I also remember little wisps of dreams.  Doctors, nurse practitioners, and  nurses always seem to play a key role in them even if it has nothing to do with the hospital.  This is probably because they play a key role in my life right now.

The nurses warned me that this would happen and I just kind of laughed it off.  I'm just grateful that that my stress is buried a little deeper than it was in the beginning.