You can see in this photo how swollen my belly is getting from all these injections and growing follicles…
I cannot even count the number of ex-boyfriends and phallic symbols or just blatant dicks in my dreams last night. (they came in many forms; dickheads, several dildos, people being dicks, actual dicks) Jesus Christ! (he isn’t a dick and did not appear in my dream) I actually woke up feeling a little embarrassed to be sleeping with myself like “woahh chill out girl!” When I got a glimpse of my reflection in my bedroom mirror my face was priceless – like I’d just been caught red-handed, mid-act doing something naughty. Except I’d been caught by myself. And it was just a dream… But dreams are rarely literal and I know that with a tiny bit of unpacking, it will be glaringly obvious what all the phallic stuff was for. Even as I type this it’s just so clear… hormones, the uncomfortable internal ultrasounds at Genea every few days with that cold, lubed up, phallic probe, creating potential new life in the most unnatural way possible – without a penis or sperm, all the “partner not applicable” sections I’ve had to scribble over forms, doing a (typically) couples thing on my own as a single 23 year old, making 50% of a baby in this clinical, unsexy environment, and yes sure my sex drive is in over drive … dozens of reasons.
Normally I dream vividly and in technicolor. Sometimes they’re so real that I remain in that dream state, full of adrenaline and totally detached from reality for hours, sometimes a couple of days. I haven’t dreamed like this in a few months I think because my sleep has been so light and my minds been too racy to allow me to draw on any subconscious thoughts – just too present in reality! Not always a bad thing I guess but it’s nice to escape.
Last night I started spotting lightly and was in considerable pain again – this has happened a few times since I’ve come off the pill but I have to have two ‘normal periods’ (whatever the hell that means – haven’t had one in years!) until I can go into my fertility clinic and have all my tests done to see if I’m ready for ovarian stimulation, followed by egg retrieval at the right time.
I woke up this morning having dreamt about my entire family getting ready to go to some other family member’s baby shower – not really sure who. I’m sure this has a lot to do with all these fertility and baby thoughts I’ve been having and also the new arrival of my perfect little baby cousin, Kobe, who I got to hold and nestle 2 weeks ago when he was so so tiny and new. What an incredible feeling – what is it about babies that just overwhelms you with love!! I can’t wait to watch him grow up and be his surrogate aunty. Anyway a side note in this dream was that all us Freedmans were huddled around a giant saucepan collectively creating the worlds biggest ham and cheese omelette. That may be some wild metaphor for something or just code for me waking up starving and craving a ham and cheese omelette! Eggs… Fertility… New life… There must be something Freudian to that I’m sure.
Part two of my dream was that I was chilling down at Sydney harbour when a friend of mine decided to go swimming even though I begged him not to and warned him about sharks (a creature I’m both terrified of and absolutely obsessed and fascinated by) and sure enough, right after he jumps in, up comes this monstrous fin and a 20 foot Great White grabs him by the torso! As I reach out to try and pull him out of the water, the giant shark suddnely chomps down on my arm and pulls me off the dock and under the water as well.
I cannot explain how real this felt, I could see underwater and was holding my breath trying to remember what the millions of Nat geo shark week docos had taught me to do in this situation. I tried to punch the shark in the nose but it let like my fists were gliding through thick honey and we continued to be clamped down together and pulled deeper to the ocean floor.
What happened next is still chilling my bones – I gripped the shark’s face with both hands and started gnawing and chewing on its head, through its skin and flesh (gruesome!!) I was literally ripping out chunks of the poor thing with my teeth like some kind of barbaric animal so that it propelled us up above the surface, opened its jaws and released us so we were able to clamber onto the dock to safety.
What does it mean!!!
Blood reference – that’s obvious. The unexpected. Fearing and appreciating something in equal parts. That we overcome things we never thought we could to save ourselves or the people we love? Even though the shark was trying to end us both, I love those creatures and would never want to hurt them. It was such a bloodbath of torn flesh that even though it was just a dream I feel murderous and upset by what I did. I’m hoping I’ll figure that one out with some analysis and conclude that it meant something else entirely, which dreams almost always do.
As graphic as that was, it felt nice to dream like that again – really wakes you up!
(I also dreamed I bought a bangin’ pair of $350 Karen Walker sunnies I was pining over the other day so that lightened the mood, but was a rude awakening to wake up and find that I still don’t own them and most likely never will.)
