Baby shower plans and crazy pregnancy dreams

I had always heard about the wacky dreams that women can have during pregnancy, but I'm learning about it first hand now-a-days! No doubt that the underlying themes to my dreams are probably fears of loss manifesting themselves through my subconscious. For example, a couple of nights ago I had a dream that I met Sammy at a mall in New York City and was feeding her, but the twist was that she was only about two inches long. Then she dissolved! What?! Gone in an instant! And in last night's dream, I found her as a full-grown baby sleeping on a shelf with some liquid pouring off of her face. It turned out she had a gruesome eye infection. Um, disturbing! Anyway, I was able to hold her in my arms as she gave a sweet yawn. I was just completely in love. I remember that she wore a cute little rainbow jumper. All of the sudden the freaky ghost lady from "The Grudge" movie came flying down and tried to try to take her away. I yelled at her and said YOU CAN'T HAVE HER! These dreams are so over the top ridiculous though that when I wake up, I have to laugh. Sheesh. Figured I'd share.

Meanwhile, back to reality in my waking moments....

Sammy is kicking SO much! She actually woke me up from my freaky dreams last night with a baby dance party. I was glad to have her rescue me! It's always a very reassuring feeling. V-day is exactly one week from today. I know nothing magical will happen precisely next Thursday, but it's such an important milestone for us to get to. Knowing if something terrible were to happen and if I were to go into labor, thinking she has a fighting chance is such an amazing difference from reality of now. Until then, her perfect little body wouldn't have any chance to survive. So keep on growing, my baby girl!

And in happy news, my friend Candace is throwing me a baby shower and just booked her tickets to come visit the end of June! I haven't seen her since she and her family moved from Texas to Maryland in 2011. It's going to be so fun to have her visit. I still can't believe I'm having a baby shower. I am going to confess to you all that I kind of wondered if I would never have one. I always figured that even if I were so lucky to become pregnant, I couldn't figure out who would come or who would offer to host it. Obviously my mom has passed away. But I lost a lot of my friends when I distanced myself during the pain of infertility and loss. My "in real life" friends became more and more sparse as I chose not to go out to girls-nights, parties, and family barbecues. I hated being trapped in limbo where I couldn't identify with the friends-with-kids crowd, and I also could no longer identify with the young-without-a-care-in-the-world crowd either. Most of the friends I became closest to I had met online through infertility support groups. When I became pregnant and started thinking about a shower, it was a sad realization to see what infertility (and my choices, I'll own it) had done to my relationships in real life. For the friends who stuck it out with me through the good times and the bad, you have no idea how grateful I am. Thank you. I love each of you so much.

Last update for today, we registered for four hospital classes booked all throughout in June. So between those and the June baby shower, it seems that June will be a busy month. To think all of this is happening the month after next is just a huge reality check that again, this is REALLY HAPPENING. Still seems surreal.

I'll leave you with my latest bump photo. I hope to start doing this every week as I hit the new weekly milestone. Here is today, now at 23weeks majorly cheesing it up. Clearly I'm very happy to be sporting a baby bump!