Diary: Tim and Sarah's new baby stories

Last night I dreamed that I was at my birthing class with a bunch of other mothers-to-be. The night's lesson centered around discussing what our newborns will look like, so we won't be too shocked when the time comes. They tend to have wrinkly skin; enlarged genitalia from all the estrogen coursing through their little bodies; bluish hands and feet until their circulation gets going; and cheesy, yellow, lotion-like stuff called vernix still clinging to their skin. Sometimes the tight squeeze through the birth canal even molds their heads into little cone shapes. Seemed like a perfectly reasonable lesson at the outset.

It would have been enough to show us photographs or illustrations of other newborn babies to get her point across, but our teacher had a newfangled technique in mind. She gathered all dozen of us in a large hospital recovery room, had us change into hospital gowns, and lined us all up on tiny operating beds shoved one up next to the other. I can remember being so close to the mother next to me that our backs were touching as we laid on our sides (as one must do with a giant pregnant belly), me on my right and she on her left.

Next thing I know, the teacher has given us all some super-high dose of oxytocin (the biochemical that dilates your cervix and causes contractions, I think), and suddenly all of us find our premature infants popping out of our bodies. We are all instructed to swaddle the babies and bring them up to cuddle near our chests, leaving the umbilical cords attached.

"You should try to sleep," says the teacher, "until I can make time to get around to each of you." Looking over my left shoulder, I can see that she has started at the far end of the room, nudging each mother and describing all the parts of her newborn in detail. It will take her quite awhile to get to me, and I'm feeling quite exhausted, so I turn back toward my swaddled infant with the idea of dozing off.

"Just one more peek," I think to myself. As I pull back the flannel receiving blanket, I see a slew of reddish blond curls.

"Whoa," I whisper (though not in a Keanu Reeves-like voice). "You don't look much like your daddy OR me." But considering he's still attached to my insides via this purple cord that keeps getting tangled in my legs, I'm pretty convinced he's mine.

Next thing I notice is that he is absolutely HUGE! And then The Idea strikes me. Our teacher's plan is that we will all put the babies back inside us after class and let them continue to gestate until they reach full term. But I also seem to remember her talking an awful lot of the strain, stress and excruciating pain of a "real" labor and delivery. Why, oh why, should I have to put him back in and then go through all that in another few weeks? I'll just take him home just like this!

This epiphany shoots me up with enough adrenalin that I jump out of bed. The sudden movement further awakens the groggy redhead in my arms, and I get a better sense of just how big and strong he really is, despite being at least six weeks premature. With one big arch of his back, he nearly wiggles right out of my arms. The teacher doesn't notice (she's made it only made it only about two more mothers down the line) when I head for the door. Just then, I pass a burly male nurse dressed all in white.

I shove the baby at him and ask, "How much do you think he weighs? He's huge, don't you think?" The guy looks at me kind of flustered, but does that up-and-down motion with the baby, like he's estimating the weight of a watermelon at the grocery store, or more likely for him, an unmarked dumbbell at the gym.

"Oh, I'd say he's over eight pounds," he reports, passing the swaddled redhead back to me.

"Yippee!" I think to myself. There's no possible way they could make me put this giant baby back inside me. If he went full term, he'd be something like 11 pounds before he was born (again). Why would they ever want me to endure that delivery if he's perfectly healthy this time around?

By this time, my commotion has caught the teacher's attention and she tries to shoo me back to my bed with one of these "now, now, don't get yourself overly excited" kinds of attitudes. But, of course, the more she tried to calm me, the more exuberant and insistent I became that I should not have to put the baby back, regardless of "hospital procedure." Indeed, I looked around at all the other babies, and they all looked perfectly formed and healthy too. I remember seeing a little girl with hair so long she looked like she was already a year old. I tried to rally all the other mothers into a mass mutiny -- I was hollering at this point -- but they all stared at me like I was hyped up on cocaine.

Alas, I can't remember what happened after the teacher and other hospital personnel grappled to force me back into bed. Mabye they knocked me out with some kind of injection.

Or perhaps more likely, the REAL little William (whom I assume does NOT have reddish blond curls) pushed on my bladder hard enough to wake me up and send me scurrying to the bathroom for the fourth or fifth time of the night.