I am married to an army soldier, we live on a military base. I am currently pregnant, in my 5th month with my 6th pregnancy. I only have had one live birth, due to the many pregnancy complications I have experienced: 2 miscarriages and 2 ectopic pregnancies. I have been really worried about this pregnancy and the outcome. We want to have a baby so bad...We have 3 cats as pets. “Junior” in the dream is the actual name of one of our cats...my husband’s favorite.

Dream:

I am living in an army base. I am 5 months pregnant or so. I go to a baby store to look at strollers. I notice there are only two left, so I hurry up and get one before anyone else does. As I am looking it over, my water breaks. I give birth to a little baby girl. I am surrounded by people, but no one notices it. The baby fits in the palm of my hand, she is so tiny. At first I am scared, because I know she is so little. But she is alive and looks at me with love. I wrapped her up in a blanket. I remind myself to pay for that blanket before I leave the store.

My husband walks in. I show him the baby, he says “Oh” and proceeds to ask me where Junior is. Junior is our cat. I was like, “Who cares? What about the baby? Don’t you care about our baby?” My husband leaves, I guess he is still looking for the cat. I hold the baby close to me and I walk to a couch I see in the store. There is a pretty girl sitting there, waiting to get her hair done. I say, “Do you mind if I sit here? I am going to nurse my baby.” She looks at me weird and gets up as quickly as possible. She and many other strangers in the store surround me in the couch, looking at me, whisphering. I’m thinking..“What is their problem? Haven’t they ever seen a woman nurse her baby before?”

I see my husband; he is back. I asked him to please give me a blanket to cover myself with while I nurse. He doesn’t move. He just stares at me, like all the others. Someone, finally, throws me a sheet to cover myself. She tried to not get too close to me.

I don’t really care about them, at this point. I start nursing my baby and I am relieved I am making enough milk for her. My baby looks at me, again, with love. I think to myself: “All she needed was to eat. She will be OK from now on.”

After I am done nursing I burp the baby and then lay her down on the couch. I ask my husband to watch her. I want to get some baby stuff before we leave the store. Not even a second later I hear the baby scream at the top of her lungs. I turn around and I see my husband by the couch, holding our cat. I run and pick up the baby; the cat had jumped on her face and smashed it all up, just like as if she was made of PlayDough. My husband kept saying: “Oh, there you are! My precious cat! I’ve missed you!” I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I looked at my baby, my heart pounding. I noticed she wasn’t breathing - had no heartbeat. I screamed to all the strangers there. “Call 911! My baby is dying!” No one moved. Finally a lady came forward, she said, “No. We are not calling anyone. She is not a real baby anyways, she was born too soon.”

I screamed “No! No!” as I held her in my arms. “She is a real baby! She is my baby!” I fell to the ground with her in my arms and I cried and cried. I thought to myself, how unfair, to go through all of this and have this baby die too.

- Jeremia, AZ, USA

Hi Jeremia -

I know you found this dream disturbing - for many reasons - and I hope I can relax some of your fears.

First of all, I want you to know that in no way do I believe this dream to be psychic, precognitive, or foreshadowing of your future. Rather, I think it is a fairly straightforward representation of your emotions and concerns right now as you progress on the always perilous path toward motherhood.

Dreams are representations of feelings and awarenesses that currently are on our minds. Your baby is due in four months - so therefore I find it entirely natural that you are dreaming of making preparations for its arrival. Your dream begins with you out shopping for a stroller. Due to your past difficulties, your concerns about your ability to carry your baby to its full term soon are represented. Suddenly your water breaks and - lo and behold - in the middle of the store - you give birth to a new baby girl. In the dream, however, your real world awareness that it is too early for you to deliver your child - you are only five months pregnant - is included. Your dream baby is tiny - small enough to “fit in the palm of my hand.”

Despite that you are surrounded by people - no one notices that you have just given birth. Even more disturbing, however, is your husband’s reaction. When he appears in the dream, you show him the baby, and instead of him being excited and goo-gooing over his brand new baby girl - all he says is “Oh” - and then he quickly asks you where the cat is.

At this point, it is clear that your dream is reflecting many of the difficult feelings you have experienced in the wake of so many recent disappointments. The dream shows that you are feeling isolated in your emotions - which is represented by the fact that no one pays attention to your delivery in the store. The fact that your husband appears to be too busy looking for “Junior” continues this theme of isolation. You definitely feel he is not giving you enough support - or sharing in your enthusiasm for successful delivery.

The dream also shows that, after all your previous attempts, you are feeling a bit “singled out” by the world - and are feeling isolated in this sense as well. This is the symbolic significance of all the people staring at you. And again, it is significant to note that your husband also is among this group - and that he does not move to get you the blanket when you ask him. Perhaps you feel like he also is beginning to see you as “different.”

The end of your dream certainly is a representation of all your greatest fears rolled into one. After you successfully feed your baby, you ask your husband to watch her. Not one second goes by before you hear the baby scream, and you turn around to see that Junior, your husband’s favorite cat, has attacked her - mutilating her face, and ultimately, killing her. The crowd, previously merely stand-offish, now turns openly hostile against you. A woman informs you that they will not call 911 because “Your baby was not a real baby anyways, she was born too soon.” Meanwhile your husband again completely ignores you, and the death of his baby girl, and is excited only to have found his cat again. You are left alone - crying and mourning the loss of your child.

I am sure you are puzzled by your husband’s behavior in the dream. First, I think it is important to recognize that, in all likelihood, your difficulties delivering your babies, in addition to being hard on yourself, certainly have been hard on him. I suspect that he is a bit confused by the difficulty, and may feel a bit withdrawn himself - hence his own isolation in the dream. His preoccupation with the cat in the dream - and his genuine affection for the cat in real life - most likely reflects a substitution for the caring that he very much wants to shower upon a new child. Cats are frequent symbols for babies in dreams because they are about the same size, we carry them cradled in our arms and draped over our shoulders (just like we do newborns), and we are responsible for feeding and caring for them. In other words, your husband’s bonding with the cat may be a way that he is fulfilling both his desire and need for that paternal relationship - as I know you both have had your hopes up several times now.

The good news about your current situation, of course, is that all the odds are in your favor. Nevertheless, your dream shows that you are nervous and feel isolated and need more support. Have you and your husband been to see a doctor together - have you included him in learning about ectopic pregnancies and ways to reduce the very common (25% of all pregnancies) occurrence of miscarriage? I’m not sure if you have or haven’t - but your dream suggests that he needs to be included more than he is. I would avoid becoming hostile or angry with your husband based upon his behavior in this dream. The dream suggests that he is in considerable pain himself - and that he doesn’t know how to play a supportive role in a situation which he feels powerless to change.

For more information on miscarriages, why don’t you both visit the archives located at About.com. Search their database for more information. I think you will be encouraged by what you read. I wish you the best of luck with your new baby (congratulations!) and have every confidence you will meet with success! Good luck!

Jeremia Replies
Thank you so much for your information. You certainly are very insightful about the dream. It does make a lot of sense. In a lot of ways my husband is definitely involved, but I don’t feel that he understands me completely. I feel like I have let him down, due to me losing all the other babies. He tells me he loves me no matter what, but I know I sometimes wonder. I am still pregnant, and waiting for this beautiful baby to be born....By the way, I had an ultrasound done yesterday...the doctor thought the baby is going to be a girl, just like my dream.