Pregnancy Dreams

** disclaimer... this post is a long one! I'm posting it so I can keep all our pregnancy/baby memories in one place so we can eventually turn this blog into a book - thanks Rhonda for letting me know I can do that! **

When I was pregnant with Nathan, I had some strange, strange dreams. Pregnancy dreams were so vivid and realistic - ten times more than normal. So I kept a dream diary... I just found it and had a good laugh. I thought I'd share some of the stranger ones. Please don't think different of me after you read these... cause some are so weird, they're down right scary. I highlighted the six weirdest ones, in case you just want to read them. But they're all hysterical... and usually disturbing...

1. I was 3 weeks pregnant, but didn't yet know it. I dreamt that I was on my way to pick up t-shirts for church. But the only thing I had to drive was a mack truck. And I ended up taking a 3 year old along with me - the son of my assistant pastor in real life. We get halfway there and have to stop to fold up a agiant parachute. Why? no clue. In the process, it starts to rain and pour. And its flooding fast. I'm worried that the 3 year old will drown, and so we rush back into the truck. The water is 3 feet high, and yet since I'm parked on the sidewalk (a whole 6 inches off the ground), the truck is above the water line and I can drive. But I have to stay on the sidewalks as I drive. Just then, all the rain water on the ground turns to asphalt and I can drive over it - and over the cars stuck in it, too.

That was the dream. but it gets weirder. Since it was so vivid, I remembered it clearly and thought I'd try looking it up in an online dream dictionary... for curiousity sake. I learned that water/rain is a common theme is pregnancy. And driving trucks in dreams is one of the most common things women dream when they are pregnant! Whats crazy - is I dreamt this a good week before I found out I was pregnant!! Hmm... was my body trying to tell me something?? :)

2. I dreamt that I was at a friend's BBQ restaurant. We were out back and someone wanted to play mini golf. Now, in real life, there's nothing in the back of this restaurant. In dream life, there was a mini golf course. 2 actually. I signed up to play, only to find out I was on a team of 400 people! And we were playing 2 other teams, also of 400 people. Thats one long mini golf game! Somehow, though, before I started to play, I managed to blow up the back of the restaurant. And I was horrified cause I'd have to go tell my friend the next day, at church. Just in case you're worried, all worked out well. Cause the next day (in my dream, still) I found out that the whole restaurant was fine, just the back porch blew off. And he forgave me. In real life, I did tell him about my dream. He laughed and shared that he had also had a restaurant dream that night... he had to bake 3000 potatoes and could see no end in sight. He said it was horrible. Hmm... I would have thought me blowing up his restaurant would have been worse ;-)

3. I dreamt I had a doctor's appt and my sister and mother came along. The appt was at 1pm. We waited and waited and waited and waited. Finally, about dinner time, we got tired of waiting and left, with one of those pagers that restaurants use. We did some stuff and then came back at midnight. The waiting room was still full. And so we waited some more. Finally, at 3am, we were tired of waiting. I got up and yelled at the front desk that my appt was 14 hours earlier and I had still not been seen. They frantically looked through the books to find my name, only to find that I really didn't have an appt. I told them I had an appt card, but not with me. They told me to go find out who gave it to me, cause they never put it in the system. Ok, well, long story short, next thing I know, I'm racing through a jungle-like parking garage, being chased by an elephant and a man who works for the doctor whose trying to get me to set up another appt for another week. But I wanted to be seen right then! I wanted the sonogram done, and didn't want to wait another 2 weeks. In the end, I ended up in a hotel room where the lady who gave me the appt card was. I showed it to her, and she realized she had done it. She fessed up, and got fired. But I never did get my appt.

4. I dreamt that Jacob and I were going white water rafting. Although it wasn't down a river. It was at this camp place, where they had built up these water playgrounds. Imagine a child's playground, then add tons of water to it. It was weird, trust me. Random waterfalls over wooden and plastic and sometimes rubber makeshift thingies. I don't know how else to describe it. Anyways, we're having fun going from one place to the next in our giant inflated rafts. And then walks in Robin Williams. He and Jacob strike up a great conversation and soon they are talking about Jupiter. The planet. They chart out the orbits of all the planets and cannot figure out why Jupiter is the only planet not following the orbit pattern they've planned out. I got frustrated cause I wanted to go raft some more, and all they wanted to do was figure out Jupiter. Weird.

5. I dreamt that I was married to Jacob - I know, not a far stretch. But there was something weird... I usually slept alone. I didn't think much of it. But one day I realized there were 2 other ladies living in our home and they were also married to Jacob. And he had given them handbooks to our marriage. It was weird. They shared a sofa bed in the spare bedroom. Even weirder. Although I remember very few details, the dream was still soo vivid that for the next day I couldn't look at the spare room the same, at least without being surprised that there wasn't a king sized sofa bed in there. Jacob claims I was a little snippy at him that day too... hmm... wonder why?

6. I dreamt that I was kidnapped by aliens. And so was everyone else I knew. They held us at this camp-like place, and allowed us to go about life - at least semi normal life, living amongst the aliens. But when they got hungry, they'd eat one of us. Whats stranger, is the aliens kept trying to convince us to buy insurance. They said that there was no guarentee that the alien who ate us wouldn't kill us first, but would probably eat us alive. If we bought insurance from them, however, we were guarenteed to be killed before being eaten by any alien - it would be a pain free death. I woke up as I was trying to escape.

7. Jacob and I were shopping in Kmart... I don't remember the last time I was in a Kmart... anyways, I saw a sale rack, something for $2, and thought it'd make a good Christmas gift. As I was looking, Jacob took off and soon a lady came and took the whole display away, just rolled it away while I was standing there. I spent the next hour searching Kmart for the display. I gave up and went to find Jacob. He was on the other side of the store, watching two guys draw this giant grid down half the store. They had measurements in each square of the grid, and Jacob kept telling me they were wrong. He said he measured everything too, and his measurements were in whilte chalk, their's was in pink chalk. Then I noticed one of the two guys was Jacob's boss in real life. But Jacob kept telling me they didn't know what they were doing. That was a weird dream, seemingly no point.

8. It was Christmas eve in my dream, and I was with my parents, shopping. We went into an ice cream store and there was a guy with a dog (a lab). We started talking to the guy and invited him to church, since thats where we were headed next. Surprisingly, he said he'd come. So we all left. It was downtown, and somehow I lost my parents as I got to the church - a large catholic style church in the middle of a small town's downtown. At the entrance of the church was a big mean dog. I was able to sneak by him. In the foyer, were two more dogs. I got by them and went in the sanctuary. My real life pastor was just inside. He turned to me and told me that it was weird, but like 10 dogs came to church that night, and he didn't want to turn them away cause then their owners would leave too. Well, soon into the service, an uproar started. I don't remember what happened, but it was chaotic and there were aliens who were trying to eat people. I ran out and into a hallway, with 3 other people. One guy was the man from the ice cream place. We were all talking about how to get away and kill the aliens. Listening to them talk, it became evident that they were actually aliens, too! Trying not to show fear, I went over to the water fountain to get a sip, and then spit the water on one of the people's face. That part of their face melted and it proved they were an alien. The only way to kill the aliens was to throw water on them, but it took a lot of water. I tried throwing bucket fulls, but they dodged the water and didn't completely die and so I spent the rest of my dream running and trying to figure out who to carry the most amount of water possible. In fact I woke up wishing there was such an invention as a cordless garden hose. haha Now that I'm typing this dream in, instead of sharing it verbally, it has dawned on me that maybe there was a connection between the first two halves of the dream. Could all aliens be dog owners??? hmmmm.... do YOU own a dog??

9. I dreamt I had the baby and it was a girl and she was gorgeous. We named her Sandy. Why, I dunno... But apparently she looked the part. The day after she was born we went to the mall with my parents. I know, the very next day... and she was so cute in the van, making facing and cooing (yup, even though she was 1 day old!). Then her face changed slightly. She no longer looked like a Sandy. And she wasn't making cute faces. And out of the blue, she said - yes, she SAID - "I came from heaven to kill everyone except the buddhists." Yeah, you thought I was having a normal dream, didn't you? fooled you! Anyways, we thought that was quite unusual and took her to church the next day. I dropped her off in the nursery and she started looking weird again. Someone kept telling her not to do something and she kept saying "yes" back. Everyone thought that was odd that she spoke. Then someone came in and left a sports bottle filled with wine on the changing table. (yeah, I know, weird). She grabbed it - oh, by this time we were calling her Marybeth, cause she looked more like that name now (sorry Stephen, if you're reading this!!! Your Marybeth is much too precious to have done all this!)- anyways she grabbed the bottle and started squirting the contents on everyone that came close. About this time in my dream, I dreamt that I was the baby, and the baby starting hissing/snorting. I woke myself up making that very noise. Ok, how weird was that? Needless to say, I didn't fall back asleep for a long while...

10. I dreamt that I had a doctor's appointment and both pastors from my church went with me. Not for support... but because they wanted to meet the doctors. Evidently they were famous for something. Something really stupid... but the pastors thought it was awesome. Something like recording scores for football games... I dunno. Then when I checked out, one of Jacob's Sunday School members was the receptionist. And another lady from his class was behind me in line. It was weird. dumb and weird.

11. This time, I dreamt I was a druggie. Oh, but it gets better. I got into the habit because of my dad. You know how sometimes you dream about people you know in life, and other times you dream about fictional people? Well, in this dream everyone was fictional. Except my dad. He looked just like my real life dad. Only he was addicted to drugs. But not any kind of drugs... the hard stuff. Tylenol PM & liquid smoke. ha ha If you held the bottle of liquid smoke, it burned you, even if you held it with an oven mit! weird... In my dream, my dad had a dream to be a dancer on broadway. Yup, my dad. But he couldn't make it. And so he got addicted to drugs. I started helping him try out and eventually got involved with the drugs myself, but I wasn't near as bad as he was. Then one day I discovered a new dance move. Using stairs - super narrow and steep stairs - I climbed and danced them in a vaudeville like way. And my dad was so excited - if he wasn't going to make it to broadway, maybe I could for him. ha ha ha ha. Anyways, in the process of all this, he runs out of durgs and I go out to get him some more. I try to trade the whats left of the Tylenol for some more liquid smoke. And the dealers end up coming to our house. They force me to hold the liquid smoke and I burn my fingers. I woke up at that point, to go pee, and my fingers still felt like they'd been burnt! Weird... If you don't know my dad, you may not see as much humor in this dream as others... thinking of my dad as a druggie is just obsurd. But to think of him as a dancer?!?! Nothing could be more far fetched!! And hysterical!!!!
12. Jacob & I were asked to join a mission trip to some made-up country in the middle east. We got there and got a tour of where we'd be working - this orphanage type place. It was still under construction. Imagine the biggest hospital complex in downtown Baltimore. Thats what this place looked like. After the tour, we started driving somewhere... It was just Jacob & I in a rental car, and I think we were looking for our hotel. When out of no where, this guy on a bike speeds by us, and crosses in front of us...he was carrying - and aiming - a giant gun. He starts shooting at some car in front/diagonal of us. And Jacob points to him - as if I couldn't see him. The guy sees Jacob point him out, and starts shooting at us! The bullets don't penetrate the window, and he takes off. From then on, all the dream was about, was us running from people that were shooting at other people - and we were in the middle. I wish I remembered more... but maybe its a good thing I don't.

13. I dreamt I was at camp with kids. And in the cabin at night, some kept talking well after lights out. I warned them, and they kept talking. Camp rules said the punishment was that they lost a sticker from their board. Some kept talking after that... and the punishment for that was they had to leave the cabin and go with the camp staff (who looked sorta like a cross between an animal & an alien). The staff took the kids to the cafeteria where they were forced to eat french fries. They were told they had to eat so many, depending on their offense. Well, some of the french fries were real french fries. But most were parts of brain cut and fried to look like french fries. So when they were done eatting, they were told what percentage of their brain they had left. Distrubing... where on earth does this stuff come from?!?!

14. This next one is another one of those dreams that was so real, I was literally in a bad mood for the first hour or so I was awake.... I dreamt that a friend was dropping off her baby for me to watch for the weekend. Note: this was the night before she was actually going to do this... anyways, instead of bringing us a 3 month old, she brought a 3 month old AND a 1 year old. And she told me the 1 year old would be a serious handful, so she was just going to put Anthony (the 3 month old) in the fridge. I didn't think much of it and went about my night. The next morning, panic struck me as I realized she had put a BABY in the FRIDGE. I ran downstairs to get the child, and he wasn't there. He was in the FREEZER!! And he was naked!! Just wrapped in one blanket, but still very much alive and well. He was just the size of a 25 week old premature child... super tiny & thin. And there was a note wrapped around him, telling me that she didn't leave him any food, but here was a list of things he could eat. Oh, I was furious at myself for forgetting about the child, but all the more furious at the mother for doing such a thing!!

15. I dreamt that Jacob & I bought a house. It was a 3 bedroom home with a basement. And we invited friends to move in with us. Jacob had 4 college guys he knew that would move in, and stay in one bedroom. And 2 girls from church would move out of their parents' homes and into ours... I know... I don't know why... anyways the guys were the first to arrive, and moved in before Jacob & I. Apparently they thought their 10x10 bedroom was way too small for the 4 of them (which it was!!), so they knocked down the wall between their room and the next bedroom. Again, they thought that was too small, so they knocked down the next wall too. Now their room encompassed the areas where both bedrooms & the living room & the hallway had been. Evidently Jacob didn't mind. But I sure did! I was furious. Anyways, I walked to the kitchen - which is now the only room, aside from our bedroom, that we actually have "ownership" of in our own home. And I saw the steps to go downstairs...the steps turned into a slope & a tunnel...the tunnel wound around to a giant open area in the basement. It was a movie theater. A HUGE movie theater. With seats in 3 different areas and a giant screen. It was all decked out and fancy, too. My mood totally changed, I forgot about the boys upstairs, and started thinking about all we could do with this movie theater. We could really make some money off this thing - and use it for ministry too! The next thing I remember in my dream, I'm walking down that tunnel again and there's a giant crowd in line for our movie theater. I recognize 2 people. One was Laura Smith - from elementary school - and I know I knew the other, but I can't recall now who it was. Strange...

16. I dreamt that I saw this giant lizard like creature in the living room. Gidget was chasing it. Imagine a guinea pig shaped lizard. She had a good grasp on it. Then all of the sudden Gidget ran and hid, and this much much bigger thing grabbed the lizard. It was shaped more like a really big and long muskrat. I was worried about what it would do to Gidget. So I chased after it. And it morphed into all kinds of creatures - all about the same size. It changed to brown, got furry, changed its face, etc. I finally got it out of the house. I slammed the door and stuck a towel under the door to keep it from squeezing under. And then I heard something wild. The creature got on its cell phone and called his boss to tell him that he hadn't completed his mission, the stash of stuff was still in the house, but he had another idea of how to get in. I woke up all worried about how to keep him out. Weird...

17. This next one is distrubing, yet again. At least I woke up feeling that way. I dreamt that I had a stomach ache. I went to the doctor, heard the baby's heartbeat, and the doctor said not to worry about the stomach ache. Somehow on the way home I ended up at the police station, though. And I still had this terrible stomach ache. The police officer (a woman) did some simple test... She figured out my problem and had me bend backwards. When I did, she took these super sharp tongs and pinched my belly with them. It just felt like a slight pinch. When in reality she had gone inside my belly and pulled something out with the tongs. She left no marks on my belly though. And what she pulled out.... ew... a giant shrimp. But just the shrimp's tale. And it had claws attached to it. It was alive and moving and trying to claw the tongs that trapped it in air. I was disgusted that that came out of me. and I was immediately worried about the baby. She told me I had good reason to worry. If it was as active in my belly as it was outside, then the baby could be in serious trouble. Especially if the thing's claws has ruptured the baby's sac, the baby may be all scratched up. Or worse... headless, or something! I told the police officer that I'd just come from the OB and heard the heartbeat. She told me that even though the shrimp thing had no heart, what we heard at the doctor's office could have been its heartbeat and not a baby's. I was hysterical about this time. And we were rushing around trying to figure out how we were going to go about finding out if the baby was ok or not. Then I woke up, and immediately felt my belly. weird.

18. Jacob & I were kidnapped by would-be bank robbers who failed at their attempt, but managed to capture us instead. They held our sons (yes, we had 2 kids) captive seperately from us. They forced the older one (he was 3) to learn to smoke, and threatened the life of the baby. Jacob, myself, and Bob Saget were the three adult hostages. And we kept trying to find a way to escape. We came up with the brillant idea to right our SOS on the tag to the mattress in the room. Cause if its a federal offense to remove that tag, it must also be a federal offense to write on it. We thought (seriously) that the FBI would come banging down the door once we’d written on it. Well, they didn’t come. Surprise, surprise. Instead, the kidnappers caught our feeble attempt and took us out to a field. They threated to kill our baby, but instead killed Bob Saget. Thats when I woke up to pee.

19. I dreamt that these creatures were chasing me and a friend. I was wearing flip flops. And the creatures could grab them, so I threw them off and ran barefoot. But I was running up a mountain. And the mountain was covered in metal folding chairs - folded flat, and laying on the ground. Every square inch of the ground was covered in one layer of folding chairs. This helped me, since I didn't have shoes on - I could stick my feet between the backs and the seats to grip something. I woke up before I'd been caught.

20. It was really late at night. I went to close up the church and set the alarm when my family showed up. So I showed them around and all of the sudden a mariache band came in, and a WHOLE bunch of mexicans. They set up little stands EVERYWHERE and started making mexican food. It was like a big festival, set up in seconds. I tried to figure out if I should leave and set the alarm, or leave and let them do it - cause evidently they knew what they were doing, they said they came every week at 2am, when no one was there. They just cleaned up really good so they left no evidence. Strange.

21. This next one still puzzles me and its a bit disturbing... I dreamt that my husband and I were in a room together, alone, and he was trying to KILL ME! Yes. Kill me. He had a rifle aimed right at my head. And he had all the shot gun shells... they were AA batteries. Funny. Anyways, I ducked from his shot and grabbed the rifle on the ground, it had two AA batteries in it, so I aimed quick and fired - shot out each eye with 2 shots. Yes, ew! In shock, he was stunned and I was able to grab all his ammo. I shot in him the side, to get him to go away. The thing is the AA batteries didn't do much damage, just enough to blind him and leave a small tear in his side. I didn't want to kill him, I wanted to stop him from killing me. Thats when I woke up... yup, you guessed it... to pee. Odd thing is, we're getting along awesome - theres NO earthly reason to dream my husband wants to kill me. Hmm...

22. I dreamt that Jacob & I went shopping for a dryer. We went to this store thats had 3 levels and every little nook and cranny was run by someone different... like a flea market in the shape of a department store. First floor found us nothing. And I had to pee. I didn't see any bathrooms. On the 2nd floor we found a dryer. And as Jacob was talking to the store owner about it, I had to pee all the more. I fratically searched the 2nd and 3rd floors for a bathroom. Nothing. I found one. A dinky little closet with a toilet. Heres where it gets really weird. The toilet was in this little corner, there wasn't much room to actually sit. But I started to pee. WELL, next thing I know, the closet has turned into an SUV. And the only way to pee was to drive. So I'm driving down this road, where I don't know where I am, squatting and peeing at the same time cause I can't sit - plus I wouldn't be able to see out the window if I sat. I took the wrong exit, and got all the more lost... in someone elses car... and my husband has no clue I've left. It was strange...

23. I dreamt that I went to the doctor and found out I was close to being ready to go into labor - ahh! I went home and about 12 hours later I got a call from the nurse at the hospital, telling me that my baby girl had been born. So I went to the hospital to see her. I know... I know... weird. I was kinda upset when I got to the hospital, because they made me sign in as a visitor - which meant I couldn't spend the night. And worse, no one bothered to call me till she was 12 hours old! Someone else had been taking care of her. So when I got my daughter I held her and she looked up at me and said "Are you happy?" I told her I was very happy to be holding her and to be her mother. She said she was happy too. And no one thought anything about the fact that she had just talked... Well, the time came for me to leave, so I did. I went home and the next day I went back to visit her. As I stood in line at the visitor desk, it dawned on me that I should have called Jacob to let him know his daughter was here!!!

24. I dreamt that I took a trip to Bangladesh. I was with a group - some kind of tour group from the USA. I had forgotten my camera at home, so someone promised to share her pics when we got home. Well, turns out Bangladesh isn't the place I had imagined... according to my dream that is. The people there HATE Indians. And any chance they got, they slaughted them. We were horrified to say the least. But we were warned by our guide not to get involved and especially not to tell anyone or take pictures of the horror. If we were caught, we'd be killed. The people had been able to keep this secret from the world for this long and wanted that to be continued. So we continued our tour and tried to look the other way. Next thing I know, I'm in this huge house. I was upstairs, and could see into the courtyard. The phone rang. I answered it. It was my second cousins... the Shaw kids. No idea why. I was tlaking to them, trying not to let on that this country was a horror. All of the sudden, the house fills with hundreds of people. And they start killing 2 Indians in the courtyard. I tried not to let on over the phone as to what was happening. But as soon as I hung up, they saw me with the phone and assumed I'd told someone their secret. They grabbed me and brought me to the courtyard where the leader said he was going to punch me hard in the stomach for that. I was at first relieved, I thought I was about to be killed. But then it dawned on me that I was pregnant and that he could kill the baby. I tried to explain that he couldn't do that. He said "too bad, the baby will die" and I paniced. Someone convinced him, though, to just give me two black eyes and break a rib. So he did. I woke up just before that though. To pee.

25. I dreamt that I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. My parents were there, but Jacob had to go back to work. So we're hanging out at home with this new baby and I feel miserable. My mom convinces me to go to the doctors. I don't think I went... but my brother, mother & father went for me. They found out I was still pregnant and they brought home baby #2. Yes, without me. Baby #2 was also a boy. He was 3 months early - even though his brother was on time and this was only 1 day after the first birth. Only baby #2 was over 2 feet tall and weighed over 12 lbs. He had a full head of brown hair - nicely cut too. And he could almost walk. They came home with him and surprised me. They shared that since Jacob & I weren't there, my dad & brother named the baby for us. Taylor Isenhower Wuenschel. Then it dawned on me... I had 2 kids. And all I could think about was "but we just bought a stroller... and now we need a double stroller... and we only have 1 car seat". So all my friends/church came to see us since we couldn't leave with only one car seat. We enjoyed spooking everyone by showing baby #1 - an average looking kid. And then surprising them with baby #2 too. Strange.

Ok, so those are the weirdest of the dreams. Please don't call the mental hospital on me. I'm normal, really I am - inspite of what friends may say. I certainly don't miss the crazy pregnancy dreams. Although they make for some good stories!!