I wish my worst fears were lions, tigers, & bears

I've been having a lot of nightmares lately. These dreams stun to me wake at night in a panic, wet with sweat. I'm not sleeping very well to begin with and it disturbs me that the little sleep I am getting is being violated by unnecessary dreaming.

The nightmares are of my worst fears.

For the last couple of months I've been reading the blog Matt, Liz, and Madeline. A coworker and fellow blogger got me hooked. Matt and wife had a baby, Madeline, and Liz died about 24 hours after her birth from complications related to a c-section (I think it was a blood clot, I'm not sure). Anyway, the first time I read his blog I cried...ugly cried. Matt has been an exemplary father...the best any child could ask for.

I often dream that I die during delivery. It scares me white. I'm not so much scared of my life ending, it's the fear of leaving PH alone, missing out on raising our son, and knowing the heartache it would cause. It's selfish to think he wouldn't be okay without me because PH can persevere though anything. In the brink of life it's tragic to have it accompanied by death.

An acquaintance of mine (C) in Payton Place and I were hanging out on the Fourth of July. C is gorgeous, mid-thirties, and for the year that I've known her (I see her out quite a bit) I have never seen her with the same dude twice. I just thought she was a recently divorced women having fun. As we were talking the topic of children came up (hhmm...I wonder why that happens) and she was talking about picking out names and how much easier it was choosing her son's name than her daughter. Finally she refers to her son's dad as "my late husband".

I felt so stupid and slightly ashamed automatically believing this woman was divorced. As we sat there she tells me the story of how her husband was killed when she was 7 weeks pregnant; they had just found out the week before they were having a second baby. A robber came into her husband's place of work to burglarize the place and shot him in the process. I was heartbroken for her listening to the story then her 4 year old son comes walking down the stair looking for a drink of water. I stared at him for a second and thought about how he would never meet or know his dad.

That's my second nightmare in the night, but it's by far the worst. I dream of PH dying in car crashes, getting shot by a crazy student of his at school, brain aneurysms, cancer, you name it. I dream of him dying every way a person can die. It leaves me breathless. While I know deep down in the pit of my stomach that PH would be fine without me, I'm not nearly as certain as my own survival without him. It sounds pathetic...I know this, but maybe that's why I fear it so incredibly much.

I recognize these are just crazy pregnancy dreams, but they still haunt me. They haunt me because they can become true.

Jeez...I just need this kid out so I can focus on something else. The suspense is freaking KILLING me. I think at least half of the people who submitted dates of the expected babe are still in the running. If I could put a guess in, I'd say the 24th. Scary, huh?

Alright, tomorrow I won't talk about death. I'll talk about my friend's clinical week in the city for Free STD testing week! Those stories are priceless.