Strange Dream

I had the strangest dream last night. I woke up (in my dream) and found that I was alone in my room with a little baby boy. I didn't know who the mother was, but I obviously had to start taking care of this tiny, helpless baby who had no one else, and within a very short time (in my dream, days passed like seconds), I loved the child, though at first he was just something that needed help. When I ventured out with this baby in my arms, I found Husband and some friends, who told me that the baby was really mine. I had given birth to him a few days before. I was frantic that I had lost my memory of having a baby, and they told me that they had uploaded all my memories of the labor onto computer discs in order to spare me the memory of pain (oddly, I had given birth in Mexico. I have never been to Mexico).

In my dream, I was very deeply upset about this, and I sat and thought about what they had done for a long time. I looked at the baby boy, whom I now loved with all my heart, and wished that I had been allowed to keep the memory of the pain of labor so I would have felt connected to the baby from the very first time that I saw him. I felt a fear that I might have abandoned the baby had I not grown to love him, never knowing he was mine. Though the pain of labor is so horribly intense (I guess even my unconscious self remembered that), I would rather have the pain and the memory of the pain than have it taken away, because the joy of the outcome was so worth it.

I'm still thinking about that dream. And, no, don't take it literally. I'm not pregnant.