Sleep brings no respite

I had a dream last night.

T, my mum, my sister and I were out by the beach or somewhere and all of a sudden I decided to put Jay, who is just over two and a half, on the bus home by himself.

A two and a half year old on a public bus home by himself.

Reason, ration...it all pretty much went out the window. That bizarre dream logic won the day as no one tried to stop me. One minute I had made the call, the next he was on the bus by himself.

Then, a little while later, after he was gone and out of my sight, reason and ration kicked in with devastating force.

The panic and the guilt jolted me awake and back to reality. It made me physically sick to my stomach.

In my half-conscious state, I imagined us all racing to the bus stop, calling the bus company and asking passengers on every bus we saw if they had seen him.

I imagined the worst and, worst of all, I imagined his little face, forlornly looking around. I imagined the worry forcing his facial features taut and I imagined him bawling unstoppably once the anxiety took hold.

I don't need a psychology degree to work out what that dream means. It still unsettles me to my bones. It still makes me cry, when I honestly thought the tears had run out.

Also, I re-read my previous post and suddenly realised I used the term "baby" when writing about, well, the baby. In hospital, I had said "foetus" - a cue the midwives had picked up on, displaying their finely honed sensitivities. They too called it foetus. The doctor, who we saw for mere minutes at a time and who we spent less time with, kept calling it "baby" or, in one heartbreaking moment, "bubby".

As the days wear on since last Thursday, I feel slightly closer to the baby - or its spirit at least. And it feels wrong to name it with such a clinical, medical term.