Dreaming of Her

Isnt it amazing how things can mean one thing to you one day and something completely different the next?  As your life changes, as YOU change, things like song lyrics, poems, quotes, and even dreams, can take on whole new meanings.

After the birth of my first son I started dreaming of another baby.  These were extremely vivid "feel like I'm really there" type dreams.  It was always the same baby...Always.  It was a little girl, a sweet precious little girl.  In my dreams I was pregnant with her, I labored with her...I never saw the delivery, but I nursed her.  I remember sitting in a rocking chair late at night with her wrapped in my arms, singing her the songs that my grandma sang to me when I was just a baby.  I watched her grow into toddler hood, but mostly my dreams centered around her as a baby.  Her coos, her cries, her smiles, her needs, her fears....HER.

I was convinced this was God's way of telling me that my next baby would be a girl.  I had always wanted a little girl....always.  I wanted someone to carry MY legacy, some one to teach MY things to, some one with whom I could break a cycle that has been in family for generations.  Her name was to be Emma Lou after both of my grandma's.  I knew we would have our issues as time moved on, as all mothers and daughters do, but she was to ultimately be my best friend.

When we became pregnant with Vanessa there was no doubt in my mind she was a girl.  I had been dreaming of her for years!  I instantly started calling her Emma as a step of faith.  I talked to her about every last little detail of every day.  Folding clothes, doing dishes, her daddy's touch, my love, the color of the sky, the songs of the birds....everything.  When she left me...oh, the pain.  It was like having all those hopes and dreams ripped out of my heart, my mind...my very existence was torn.  I felt her death all the way to my core.  She was NOT my Emma.  She couldnt have been.  I was to watch that little girl grow up, hold her in my arms, nurse her, cuddle her....and so we named her Vanessa.  My Emma would not have left me.

The more I think about it, though, I have to wonder, was that really her in those dreams?  So many times God has allowed me glimpses of her to calm my heart and mind.  Could that have been His way of knowing the pain to come and allowing me to have some time with her.  I cherished those dreams then just as I cherish the ones I have now.  Now that I am on THIS side of my baby days...and it has become obvious I will never have the daughter my heart so longed for...I have to wonder if that was who that was all along.  I saved the name Emma for a living daughter I thought I would some day have, but what if Vanessa had been the Emma from my dreams and Emma in my dreams was really Vanessa?  Does that even make sense to anyone but me?  I thought they were two different little girls, but they could have been the same.  God gave me so much time with her...years...and I didnt even know it.