Pregnant and DREAMING!!!

In terms of fantasy quotient, pregnant women's dreams and nightmares can make Steven Spielberg look pale. I used to boast about having the soundest sleep in the world with no recollection whatsoever of any dreams at all...and then I got preggie and this self image that I had created so painstakingly, got shattered into a million dreams!!


I have now been made capable by my pregnant state to see the most weird and fantastic dreams and nightmares that have included the following till date -  horror (most common theme); thrill; sex; drama; comic book heroes who have by some scientific experiment become pregnant (imagine Phantom pregnant); lions; Salman Khan (don't ask me why); science fiction plots involving babies with special powers; my boss (again, don't ask me why); my husband and the rest of the family; vampires; babies with tails; forest; toilet; ultrasound images in technicolour; my baby getting exchanged for another one in the hospital;... and some other unmentionable ones... Yes...that sums it all, at least till now.


Obviously, having being jolted to wakefulness almost every night by this weirdness, the researcher in me got interested in this topic (sleeplessness being the other factor besides academic curiosity) and I studied at least a dozen articles about 'pregnancy and dreams'. I was amazed to discover the wealth of information that 's available (it seems as if pregnant women do nothing else but dream). There are websites and research articles dedicated to this topic, that tell you the interpretation of these dreams... for example what it means if you see 2 kittens; 5 cubs; 9 armed babies etc in your dreams (yes- to that last detail). 


The websites claimed that the themes of most dreams are common among pregnant people, probably because all of us go through a similar gamut of anxiety and hormonal ups and downs. Dreams of preggie women have also been classified as 1st, 2nd and 3rd trimester dreams for purposes of systematic research - really, I had no idea that what I was experiencing was worth such extensive scientific research. So, I felt like a wonderful citizen of the world when I contributed two of my bizarre dreams to one such online forum in order to add to their collection (felt so fulfilled - my pregnancy dreams would be discussed and investigated and will help the world on its way to a new scientific era where people would understand dreams seen by pregnant women!). 


The best part was how relieved I felt when I read the dreams that other pregnant women had posted. All my fears were put at rest about any of my horrifying dreams ever coming true as the ones seen by some other women crossed all boundaries of bizarre. A new Oscar for best imagination needs to be instituted for some of these pregnant women!! 


I am not sharing my dreams here as some of them have the potential to make people sick and I don't want you all spending the rest of the month cleaning the crevices of your keyboards. But I will let you know the six commonest themes that most women see:

1. Water : ocean, bowl of water, toilet bowl, fish in water, swimming pool etc (related with anxiety/ knowledge about baby swimming in the amniotic fluid)
2. Husband/ Partner with other women :mostly super-models with silicon largely figuring in their figures (related with insecurity about your changing body/weight gain etc)
3. Appearance of baby or Baby in distress : baby as a kitten/cub/dinosaur - anything but human; being born with excessive hair; born an adult; being exchanged for another baby in the hospital; having more than required body parts; torturous delivery with a painful expression on the baby's face; baby plopping into the toilet bowl while you are going on with your daily tasks etc (and you thought that horror films were scary!!!) (seen by almost all preggie women - the good news is that there is substantial research to show that this is the best way to release anxiety and tension that women have about their unborn babies and women who see such dreams mostly have hassle free deliveries!)
4. Evolution: seeing one celled creatures changing shapes and sizes till they reach human form - passing from fish...reptile...amphibian... avian...to mammalian state (signifies the process of the baby growing inside the womb starting from a single cell)
5. Freedom: seeing open fields, airplanes, kites, yourself running or participating in adventure sports such as sky diving etc (signifying anxiety about new role as parent and loss of current independence. Fathers- to be also see these dreams!)
6. Change: a new room or balcony in your house; a new car; you staying in another city; you as a queen/ some other profession; you and your partner being reborn as some animals/aliens etc (I know this is weird) (signifies a new event about to happen in life - the baby)

Yes most of the dreams are actually nightmares but they come with the pregnancy package...so, 'sweet and sour dreams to you dear preggies!!'


The scientific explanation for these vivid dreams is, 'the anxiety and apprehension of the pregnant woman (regarding changes in her life/ body; or about the safe arrival of her baby; or its health etc) manifests into dreams'..of course- this does not explain my seeing Salman Khan in a dream. But then you can't explain everything in life! Can you? :-)


Some images from my dreams:

Well I saw a pregnant Phantom and Diana feeding him fruit

Lions and me giving birth to lion cubs - a litter!

I saw a toilet bowl and also the baby plopping in it!

Yes I saw Salman Khan - three times - each time without his shirt and with a baby!

Some interesting websites about pregnancy and dreams if you want to research further:

Very interesting pregnancy dreams decoded

Research Paper

An A-Z guide to interpreting pregnancy dreams

The tussle between suggestions and following them- Part 3

I am hardly halfway through my pregnancy and I have started getting suggestions about the delivery: two opposing suggestions:


Suggestion: You could go for a painless delivery (with an epidural - an injection that numbs the lower part of the body and helps in a painless delivery - i think a wonderful invention of science))
Opposing Suggestion: You should let the delivery take its normal course and experience labour pains..we were never created for painless deliveries!!


Real Life
I am confused....and also think that the delivery is still a long time away....


So, I asked some of my experienced friends (who are already moms; have given birth; are doctors etc) for some practical advice. It was a silly move on my part - I stand even more confused now!! But I'll share the stories/suggestions here for mitigating my confusion. Let's name these friends A, B, C, D and E and here are their experiences:


'A' (a friend from college) had 28 hours of excruciating labour pain and her screams could be heard outside the hospital!...She refused to go for an epidural as she wanted to have the most natural delivery possible (why???) ...and this very same friend was scared of not only cockroaches but the most harmless creatures in God's world i.e.earthworms!! (sometimes you think you know your friends and then you realize how wrong you were) She told me that she read somewhere (another suggestion) that she wouldn't feel like a real mother if she doesn't go through the labour pain..(I wanted to tell her that it was a bunch of crap but seeing the glow of pride on her face, I stopped myself just in time) Still her story added to my confusion nevertheless as I did not want to feel like an 'unreal' mother!!


'B' described her delivery with such gory details that I was forced to wonder why she was such a dud in writing essays in school. But she was very truthful in admitting that after a couple of hours of pain, when the doc suggested an epidural, she readily agreed...not finding it useful to kill herself before her baby was born (what common sense!). But she told me that taking an epidural makes the mother so numb waist-down that she is not able to push properly and hence the baby has to be assisted at birth using forceps or vaccum pump. Her baby was born with the help of a vaccum pump (and she proudly compares it to Kareena Kapoor's elder sister's delivery in the movie Three Idiots...to give me a better picture). So that still left the lingering question of whether or not to get an epidural as these forceps or vaccum things could create a problem!


'C' was most experienced - two children - first normal delivery, second C-Section. Her first baby was born in the US where she told me that giving an epidural is part of the procedure unless you have an allergy to it. She said 'everybody over there has painless deliveries' (thus erasing all sense of guilt from my mind for having called the epidural a great invention)...The next baby was born in India and was a C-Section and for that, an epidural or other kind of anesthesia is mandatory to be administered. But before I could heave a sigh of relief, she went ahead and told me what went wrong! Well somehow, they had jabbed the epidural at a wrong location or something so its effect was milder than normal and she could feel the doc cutting open her abdomen!!!! (feel it - now what kind of a feeling is that!!!!) but she informed me that there was no major pain, just some sensation of being ripped apart!!! Yes...Right....Thank you very much!! 


'D' turned out to be a big supporter of epidurals, anesthetics, pain killers in general and asked me why were they made if not to be used at the right time (probably she is right). She has two children - the elder one, her daughter, was born with an epidural and she said that she felt quite good about the delivery as her daughter had taken 14 hours to pop out after the labour pains started...so imagine that without an epidural! But she went ahead and explained to me that getting an epidural does not mean 'no labour pain' - it just means no pain during delivery - what an eye-opener (and I was comparing a painless delivery to a walk in the garden). Then, I inquired about her son's birth...She gave me  a dazzling smile and said...'Oh! I got an epidural at his time also but he was born in 12 minutes and the epidural takes at least half an hour to take effect'!!!! Beautiful! 


'E' is a very good friend and a no- nonsense doctor...When I inquired about epidurals very nonchalantly as if it were for an acquaintance, she immediately saw through me. She told me to shut my trap (literally) and stop reading shit on the internet (she is herself a grade 1 luddite (a person who fears or loathes technology)). She scolded me like a grandmother and said that 'Every pregnancy is different and you never know what will happen when you are about to deliver' (as if after hearing 1000 stories- all of them different, I didn't know that much). Basically, she conveyed to me that when the push comes to shove (pun unintended), then we'll see!!!
Of course she couldn't stop herself from narrating a story about a breech baby (everybody has this urge of topping all the stories that I have already heard).......
Unwittingly, she has made me navigate from epidurals to breech babies on the world wide web to enhance my knowledge!!!! (my resolve is even stronger after I saw that my latest scan said - 'baby is extended breech!!')




Note: Pleeeeease do not google any images of epidural needles or injections or procedure of administration if you ever want to get one!!!

Let her be!!!

'No No No....I am not going to talk about Aishwarya Rai B. being pregnant even if you pay me for it' (that is what I thought when I first heard the news but I am an extremely accommodating person who can easily slide to a new position that is more convenient and comfortable). When I saw people going all crazy and bonkers over the news, I decided that I had to speak up in support of a pregnant sistah!! 


I imagined myself as a pregnant celebrity (say Ash) at a time when I still haven't told anyone about it... then I go out  in a dress with folds and make the biggest mistake of my life because everyone notices that I have gained a few grams that the folds are not able to enfold!! Soon, the whole world starts talking about it (as if we have been attacked by aliens) because otherwise I have such a perfect ten figure!! The millions of guesses create a deafening din of a chant of ' she's preggie, she's preggie' which continues to haunt me till my preggie status is made official by an authoritative family member who tweets very often. Scary??? 


This is nothing... After the official declaration, people will go from crazy to berserk to downright deranged and my baby's due date/ sex/ health/ future etc will be conjectured on by experts and quacks of all fields...(just like all those extremely intellectual discussions on destinies of political personalities or the 'end of the world' predictions that make rounds in every third grade TV channel)


So that decides it...I am better off being 'a pregnant me' than 'a pregnant Ash'...for the following pertinent reasons:

• At least nobody noticed till the third month that I had put on a few grams...one of the benefits of being pleasantly plump!!
• My right to be grumpy and moody has not been partially forsaken like Ash's on account of her celebrity status - so she'll have to appear all stylish and glowing esp. as the whole country is following her preggieness so closely - poor thing!!! 
• Trust me I'm glad I am not a celebrity - there are long periods of time in one's pregnancy when one wants to mope, snap, get irritated at nothing, growl, grunt, wear comfortable cotton rags, laze....I'm sure Aishwarya will also long for these but her hands and emotions shall be tied down by the public gaze!! (shudder shudder!)
• I am still on the right side of the thirties and yet  face the risks of a complicated pregnancy - I hope Ash who is almost 38 has a hassle free one notwithstanding the public pressure..
• On having farted or burped with supernatural sound effects (as it happens frequently during pregnancy) in a meeting, I can happily look around slightly embarrassed and get understanding glances and 'doesn't matters' from everybody around. Now imagine Ash farting or burping in a press conference!! Not a lovely picture - but these are some audible bodily functions that pregnant women can't help sometimes!!

However, having said all this, if I were in her place, there would be one positive point - I would at least feel the pressure of quickly losing weight post delivery...(this won't happen as I am no Aishwarya Rai- just a lazy bum)


All my sympathies with Ash regarding this press fiasco...and huge congratulations to the two families!! I hope she does get a lot of time to throw tantrums and feel like a normal pregnant woman!!!


A message to the super- excited press and public - even all your collective excitement can't match the exhilaration that the to-be-parents are feeling!!! but it is only as good to know that everybody is happy with your news, as it is hurtful to hear people joking about it for no reason at all!! 





So let her be people!!! 


An article in ToI about this- namesake of my blog:
Pregnant Pause




(having said all that, I want to clarify that I have no particular fondness for the parents-to-be though I am a huge (really huge) admirer of the paternal grandfather-to-be...but this is an important matter of speaking for other contemporary  expectant parents even if they are celebrities!!)