I Dream a World

Ever since I saw Jet Li's The One, I have enjoyed the idea that there are multiple dimensions out there and multiple versions of me. (How narcissistic is that?!?) When things don't happen the way I think they should, I imagine that they are happening that way for alternate me(s). Of course, if there are multiple versions of me, I suppose this version doesn't get to decide what happens to the others. (That would definitely be narcissistic and a little, ego maniacal.) But, today is my daughter's original due date, so indulge me a little.

I am glad that all is as well as it is with our little Popcorn. She's still on a nasal cannula (oxygen tube), but she's on all bottle feeds and she's gaining weight daily. Her personality comes out bit by bit. Even as young as one month, she was described as "feisty" on more than one occasion. At that time she was adamant about people not bothering her while she slept (really, that's true now; I wonder where she gets that from. . .hmmm) and she would flail her little arms to fight whoever--the nurses, her parents--away. Sometimes she would grab the nurse's hands to try to stop them from touching her. But she's a good baby. She rarely ever cries and she's always moving (hence the name Popcorn) and she's thriving. Like I said, I'm glad all is as well as it is.

But when I look at her little body with all the cords still attached to her and the prongs in her nose; when I hear another baby screaming for 10 or 15 minutes without attention because the nurses are with other babies and imagine that could be Popcorn when we're not there; when I am irritated by the cacophony of all the medical machines beeping at the same time and realize that she has to hear that all the time, in her sleep or her waking hours; when I have to ask the nurses for permission and/or assistance to hold my own child, I really, really, really wish that things could have been different. And I imagine that for Alternate Me, they are.

I imagine that today is a day of rejoicing because a 7 lb. 9 oz. baby girl is born. She's healthy and strong and she really has a good set of lungs on her! Wow, she can scream! I imagine that Alternate Me is tired, but not very because laboring with an epidural is something to thank the gods for repeatedly. I imagine a warm, loving moment in which the baby girl is placed in Alternate Me's arms right after delivery and she feels in that moment that all is right with the world.

Maybe somewhere in a galaxy far away, things are happening and I am happy for Alternate Me.

But you know, even though it didn't happen as a I would have wanted, every time I get to hold my little Popcorn, I am happy for me, too.