The Meaning of Dreams

During the past two weeks, I've had a number of dreams about building a family. 

In the first, S and I were home from vacation and learned that a six-year-old kid we were about to adopt - and had never met - would be arriving at our home anytime during the month of September.  I was excited but anxious, because we were planning another trip in early October, and we didn't have any childcare plans in place.  I spent the entire dream figuring out what to do, and ultimately asked a lesbian couple we barely know in the city if they would to look after the kid for a few days while we were away.  They agreed.   How weird that we prioritized our trip over spending time with our new kid?

In the second, S and I had already built a family.  A huge family.  We had adopted six kids, in fact, and also had a number of dogs and cats in our home.  I remember smiling in this dream, seeing the kids and animals running around in our sunlit kitchen, and yet feeling completely overwhelmed.  (I'll admit, this dream was likely influenced by a photo I saw of Angelina and her brood in a magazine before going to bed).

Last night, I dreamt we had arrived home from our vacation and S had opened up the gifts of receiving blankets and onesies we received from his family. I was upset with him for doing so.  "I wanted to take a picture of the gifts before opening the packages!" I said.  He looked at me, confused.  A minute later, I understood why.  It wasn't, in fact, mere days after coming home from our trip.  It was years later.  We had already used the blankets, and as our school-aged kid walked into the room, my heart sank as I realized I had completely blanked out on the experience of raising our baby until then.  I didn't even know our child. 

I'm not quite sure why none of these dreams have involved my pregnancy or an actual baby, but instead, have been about some form of adoption of school-aged children.  In all of them, I recall feeling happy about the presence of the child(ren) in my life, but ultimately having some degree of detachment from them. 

According to some cursory internet-searching, it seems dreams about adoption can happen during periods of transition and uncertainty.  Dreams about separation from your children might mean that you are overwhelmed by your responsibilities in life.  Both of these themes do speak to my current frame of mind.  A mere 24 hours after coming back from a relaxing vacation, it suddenly hit me that we have So Much To Do before the little one arrives.  We are (obviously) in a period of preparing for major changes in our lives, but 20 weeks seems to have been the defining line between my summery "oh, it'll all work out" attitude and the "OMG, I haven't done X, Y, or Z, and we only have 134 days left!" reality.  I spent most of last night wide awake, my mind racing about responsibilities at home and work.

Thinking about it now, perhaps these dreams are serving as the kick-in-the-pants I need to get my act together.  Time to make some to-do lists.