Confessions of a Starbucks addict

Okay, so I know that dreams are all about the fears that you may have or things that are going on, but this dream started out great and ended badly. So much so that I need to write it out!

The dream started out with me waking up in labor. We weren't in our house, I don't know whose house we were in, but it did "feel" like our house. (Which would be cool, since I liked that house and am sick of living in Seattle!) It was a very warm morning. There was another couple at our house, but I have no idea who they were, I'm assuming they were neighbors.

So I start laboring pretty hard in the living room and I end up giving birth on the floor of the room. Funnily enough, there was no time to fill our enormous garden tub, so I didn't get in there. (We don't have one of those in our current home.) The baby came out strong and healthy, it hurt but no too badly. I was on one knee and the other leg was kinda stretched out with my foot on the floor. I don't know what you'd call this position, but it worked out well.

I sat down and cuddled the baby, cleared off his face and just marveled at him. Soon it was time for me to birth the placenta, so I handed the baby off to DH. Apparently right after that I wanted to shower so DH and the neighbor guy got the baby cleaned up and dressed while I was showering. I went back downstairs and saw the neighbor guy with my baby, DH nowhere in sight. He had the baby in a bouncy seat and looking good, except that he had a bottle in his mouth!

I immediately took the baby away from him and took the bottle out of his mouth and tried to latch him on. He wouldn't nurse. I was so sad. :( Then I woke up.

The thing that bothers me the most about this is that my last two kids didn't nurse well after they were born. Shayna was actually hospitalized at 9 days-old because she was losing way too much weight. We learned later that she lost her suck reflex at her traumatic (cytotec induced) birth. Luckily a speech therapist happened in to our room at the hospital and showed me how to "exercise" her while she was nursing, and she quickly learned. She didn't quit nursing until she was 6.

PJ was born at 32 weeks. She had a slight suck reflex, but was quickly frustrated with nursing. People told me to pump for her and that when she was around what would be 40 weeks, she'd magically learn how to nurse. They were right, but that whole day (the day she was due), we went out shopping and I didn't bring bottles with me. She slept most of the day and when we got home she nursed like a champ. But that first 8 weeks was depressing for me... She ended up nursing until she was almost 4.

I really want to have the "magical" baby-knows-how-to-nurse-from-birth thing again. My first three were like that...I've had my hard to nurse kids, I want this one to be fine.

So I guess that's maybe my biggest fear - nursing. Not the birth, just the nursing.