My Boots Are Made for Keeping

A year ago I had a series of extremely vivid dreams related to coping with the loss of our second baby and making sense of the upcoming egg donor IVF cycle that lead to my current pregnancy. I had a lot to work out in my mind related to my grief over my miscarriage and figuring out how I felt about another woman giving my future babies life. I dreamed in brilliant metaphor. Here is an example: I was at an indoor swimming pool and I jumped off the diving board two times. On my third time up the ladder I was paralyzed with fear. I was shaking so badly that I could barely move. I realized that the diving board had turned into a high dive, whereas the first two times I dove off, it was a low dive. I don’t think I even jumped off of it the third time, but I remember having an intense desire to go to the top to get my shaving cream. I did make it to the top, but when I got there, I was disappointed to see that there was no shaving cream, but rather deodorant waiting for me. Interpretation: I believe that the first two diving boards represent my first two attempts at IVF. The high dive represents the third egg donor cycle. The shaving cream comes in because I had gone to Target a few days before the dream. I was in the shaving cream aisle and a dad and his little girl were there and he was telling her that he needed to call her mommy because he can never remember what kind of shaving cream she likes. I thought it was so cute and became very envious that my husband doesn't get to do that. I think the deodorant in the dream represents my fear that the high dive/egg donor cycle will ultimately lead to the disappointment of having something that comes close to shaving cream (deodorant/a baby that dies) rather than the real thing (my husband and kid shopping for me at Target). 

Here is another example, which I have been reflecting back to over the last few days: In this dream I was waiting to find out if I was pregnant. If I received a shoebox with a pair of boots in it, then I was pregnant, and if it was empty, I was not pregnant. Time was ticking and I was putting off doing the shoebox test. When I finally got up the nerve to hold the box in my hands, my heart fell because I could tell without even opening it that it was empty. However, when I did look inside, there was a note from Zappos saying that the boots were damaged during shipping and that I could use the enclosed gift card to purchase another pair. When the new box arrived and I held it, I could tell the boots were indeed inside this time. I excitedly opened the box but unfortunately, I was disappointed to find that the purple boots inside were almost exactly the same as the pair I already have. Interpretation: I have used buying Frye boots as a coping mechanism for making it through IVF and my miscarriages. I bought one pair in New York before embarking on my first IVF attempt. I bought a second pair of purple boots (the reference in this dream) as a reward for making it through the first out of two IVF cycles during our second attempt (you actually do two cycles when genetic testing is involved). I bought a third pair after losing our second baby. During the entire second attempt, I told myself that if I didn’t get the baby, I would get boots instead. I almost had a panic attack one day when I realized that the boots I had been pining over were no longer available in my size through the Frye website. I began to shake and tear up, but thankfully, I was able to find them on another website. I think that the dream represents my fear of getting pregnant again, only to face another loss.

Today, in some ways, I feel that this dream foreshadowed my current reality as I face the excitement of holding a full shoe box and the simultaneous disappointment that I've walked a mile in this pair of boots before (although this time they are even more uncomfortable and painful). With the impending loss of my Baby B, I fear that any day now I will open the shoebox, the one I was so overjoyed to receive, only to find it filled with both one new shoe and one old, with both joy and despair. But back to Zappos my box will not go. I hold on tightly, knowing that despite the heartache that looms under the lid, there lives more joy than I could ever imagine.

This painting of my purple boot serves as a reminder that I wouldn't trade my babies, despite my heartache, for anything.