I breastfed an abandoned premmie found wedged in a wall running it to the closest SCBU: 10 days into feeling like my soul has been pulled out of my ass.

I wake up cold and panicked, tits tingling. 

The familiar nail dragging sensation only ever comparable to the oxytocin-induced equivalent of the "not my daughter, you bitch" gut-punch feeling of seeing your kid been punched in the face by an unnamed Shitbag at a kid's party, her Everything imploding with the resounding and soul crumbling thud-an autonomic readiness to wager the war you "never signed up for".

------

To be factual, I neither found myself walking towards the underpass, Ginnel... (Gin-uhl, jenn-ell, debate it like Yorkshire 'picky tea' on the night you perused Casualty Corner before food shop day)..... -between two Northern terraces, nor did I actually find and/or rescue a 35 week preemie newborn swaddled in stained towels within a nook of a semi-crumbled wall alongside and leading to said 'ginnel'.

Now, I wouldn't describe myself as Mother Theresa, far from it, but waking up panicking about the potential demise of that starved, weak and extremely cold baby that I 'dream found' that I'd frantically put in direct skin to skin, removing the frost-hardened stained teatowels avoidantly enshrouding it, placed just so in a way that not even an amoeba could mistake as an attempt to signal 'this child has been abandoned' were they to pass, the fear that I may well be the only middleman between what I saw before me, and an unmarked grave the week following, thinking what if any attempts I make, just aren't enough.... I consciously say out loud that this tiny human deserves to be given a fair chance. In that moment, 'dream Jemma' recognised this, touches the cold, sunken cheek of a very clearly unwell and near-death helpless newborn left to the elements.... My only thought, primitive and instinctive was: Help.  

I swiftly scoop up my lethargic liege, sodden weeks old nappy bulging at the seams and all, grunting, nasal flaring, all the things that make me realise that once you've seen a poorly baby in your real conscious life, you never forget those signs that say "oh fuck", even if you are REM-ing the fuck out of your lucid dream state....

I can still smell the damp moss around the crumbled bricks it lay upon, the olfactory assault of the sour waft of dank putrid water puddled amongst the inevitable end point of the complex and mismatched [but very broken] tangle of a drainage network that abruptly gathered in a sudden yet uninvited gathering of the dank, voiceless drip- drip- drip- signalling a chequered flag retrospectively waved at the water that somehow, despite being so very close, never made it to the sewer.

The cold, stale insult on my nostrils, flaring in response to the bundled up emergency I saw before me, Drip -... Drip....

Dream Me holds this tiny helpless being, heart pounding, willing my core heat to defrost some of its miniscule extremities, cupping its head to protect from the chill, I run... Hard.

Now (as dreams have a beautiful way of presenting thoughts as facts- snapshot moments traversing vast spaces and astronomic timeframes), I'm running.... I see nought but a few paces in front of me only. I'm no longer in the alleyway, but I feel this tiny helpless baby wrapped into me, as I run harder than I ever have, the drive to save this creature and overpowering purpose consuming me. Dream Self recognises that I am racing towards a neonatal unit I am nearby, knowing that "I just need to get this kid to safety..."

I feel the aching forgotten soul of this tiny helpless thing yearning for life, knowing that the adrenaline coursing through my veins like molten lava will keep me going, just one mile, another mile - nearly There, but I sense the nasal flaring slowing, the painfully visible carotid pulse noticeably slowing through it's paper-thin skin, and I think- Nutrients!

I remember how the rich and royal in days long since forgotten would often 'wet-nurse' the young of their employers, as I unconsciously whack a boob out and guide a nipple to this fading soul, see the most minute of movements signalling the recognition of food, energy, life. In this moment, I was willing this baby to latch to this temporary life-sustaining source of much needed energy and nutrition, I see the primitive survival instincts of this tiny, unwanted baby kick in... That unmistakeable physical 'draw' as mouth signals milk.. the ghosts of many sleepless nights suddenly enshrouding me and calling on previous subconsciously filed memories of questioning my own belief and ability to 'parent' when holding my now 11 year old, weak, reliant, hungry and helpless, casting a murky shadow over an intrinsic need to nurture.  Yet, with a tangible tug, I'm hurtled to the Here and the Now, every nail-dragging 'pull' of that feeble suckle, gradually getting stronger until I am reassured that whilst I'm feeling the thud of my heart in every muscle fibre screaming at my weary limbs to slow down, I know I can't stop running, I must not stop running.

The tiny, unloved, unseen, invisible baby is feeding away, flaring reduced, respirations stabilising, it's excruciatingly prominent carotid pulse, now regular underneath it's tiny malnourished underweight frame, every tug a life-giving affirmation- This baby is a fighter.

I'm suddenly back at the entrance of the ginnel, having been catapulted to the scene of where the dream started yet somehow at the end of the seemingly infinite cobbled offensive path, panting, breathless, limbs screaming, sweat pouring. 

Clinging to this the tiny sentient being, I see the SCBU.

The team—ready. Resus kit prepped. Paeds lined up like figurines waiting for orders.

I run.

TUG, TUG, tug- a strange auditory synchronisity with the dripping broken drain faintly heard punctuating the heavy, dense atmosphere, I can barely breathe, but the tiny baby, warm, pink and now flailing limbs, is safe.

I unravel this frail being from it's dirty shroud and kiss the now significantly less icy forehead of the ward I was temporarily custodian for.

I wake up.

 

What. The. Fuck?

Read into this as you will.

I spent hours and hours dissecting this dream. Left in a clammy sweaty dazed state for the whole morning- what did this mean???

I think back- am I the baby? Was I a faceless entity put there in the dream to serve- and save- the baby? Is this me seeing a biologically vulnerable thing and nurturing it to safety, putting things in place to ensure survival at the most primitive instinctive sense?

I firmly believe that we are all here for a reason, for many however, this reason never truly reveals itself and they may bimble through life navigating things entirely unaffected by the significance of one meaning to the next. To some this may seem like a welcomed oblivion, to others the biggest curse in the plight to achieve self-actualisation (and anyone that knows me, knows the short period of time where I would have happily dug Maslow himself up to burn him to a pile of the indignant ash I believed him to exist in eternity as- I've thankfully grown since!)

It made me think- Are people inherently and intrinsically hard-wired to 'fix'.... I mull this thought over, repeatedly and with extreme dedication (I even managed to not pop a cortex whilst doing so!)... Is the thing that I saw as a helpless soul (abandoned baby) a reflection of all that I see and have issue with in the world. Does the fact that I 'saved' said baby make me a martyr to the injustices of the world around me, or am I, without realising, seeking validation somewhat? Or could it be that in this moment, I simply miss pouring my heart and soul into holding the hands of, and guiding the steps of the families traversing the perilous river of growing a human.

I'm exhausted!

I lay, a million thoughts running through my head- do I have a pathological need to serve, to support those around me, was the 'baby' in my dream representative of the pregnant and postnatal caseload I hold as dearly to my chest as I held the fading premature bundle to me and got them to their 'end point'. I miss them, a 'family' that I know I am there, present for, in varying levels of input, for up to ten months at a time. 

Am I at an impasse where I am inherently and to my core absolutely breaking, watching great chunks of my soul, my safety, my core value and truest psyche crumble around me? Fuck, was I the baby?

I'm spiralling by this point, psychological equivalent of having a full tank of fuel in the car, but stuck circling the M25 with no way of finding the right exit watching the guage plummet wondering which will stall first, my racing thoughts or my sludged-up engine very much running on empty by this point.

-----

The doorbell rings- I forget I was expecting Tim to pop in on his rounds today, I'm pulled out of my existentialist crisis and realise I really fucking need to put pants on, I'm still sporting the strangled chicken aesthetic that would only be appealing to a polar bear with neck-down alopecia identifying it's next 'snack'.

I talk. I hear. I mull shit over.

I piece through the last 9 days and 14 hours (not that I'm counting!) of the pure hell I've been launched into. 

Tim has this excellent ability to just be in a moment. We've had many life crises navigated in very much the same vein of 'fuck it, let's make a dark humoured joke about this shitshow', and it never lands unsavoury. But the hug at the end of this moment, means everything. To really feel nurtured and safe to introspect and work through my perceptions, test that to a less objective and unbiased viewpoint. Metaphorically, if I’m the 70p gossip mag in a hairdresser’s, Tim’s the BBC website—grounded, factual, no bullshit.

Hearing and feeling first-hand that level of shits given, I feel 'safe' in my own head for the first time in a week, I feel my shoulders un-hunch.

Tim leaves, I head to Small's football training, I temporarily redirect my Erin Brokovich-esque Karen rage at rallying a team to voice and fight for something I, in this feckless state and in resounding defiance of the silencing I realised I'd previously felt with any viewpoint that may have been even the remotest bit contentious, believed in for the girls and the team.

I feel an unfamiliar pang of hunger, realise that there's a reason I can see my toes (and twat) for the first time in years, and consciously remind myself I need to eat, my body needs fuel. I recall Sara saying she's coming over and not to worry about an evening meal, so I await her return.

The door is barely clicked shut, closed in a 'normal' way that I've not been familiar with for the last 2.5 years, I allow myself the tiniest of smiles in recognition of the fact that whilst my heart and soul feels like it has been ripped into infinite pieces, I am resoundingly certain that the doorframe will no longer follow closely behind- when the doorbell goes.

Me casa es su casa

Why the fuck is my best mate ringing my doorbell? 

Sara has seen my arsehole in 50 inch screen HD whilst a gynae colleague was casually waving a hysteroscope in front of me chatting away, prior to the inevitable and imminent insertion of It into it's fleshier and more amenable neighbour. At the time I was unsure of whether I was blushing more at the fact that she's being reminded of the night she had to hose the sick of my naked body as I lay in her bath, bollock naked, for a 'nap', tangled in my partly detached hair extensions after a 6am kickout from the haunt of our very messy 20s, or whether it's the fact that the hot gynae nurse assistant is eyeballing me oblivious to the fact that I'm secretly wishing that in a parallel universe, this was not the way I'd envisaged anyone remotely as attractive as her to be seeing the core of me in quite such magnified narrative.

I open the door and am met, my hair thrown up in a shambolic attempt for 'presentability', greasy, forgotten even more so than the depressed, messy, sad and woeful tragedy that I've seen in the mirror for the last week, and a sea of faces of those I love meet my tear-filled gaze. Sara, Rhi, Amy (and my wonderful Rosey-cheeked bestie Sophia and brother Leo), and Scothern.

I quickly forget how I'd anticipated a night of figuring my shit out, figuring out quite why the dream overnight continued to haunt me in a flurry of untimely and uninvited tableaus throughout the day.

But I quickly forewent this in favour of an evening with my nearest and dearest, each a resounding pillar of quadrangulation to the messily unhinged yet unfounded doubts that plagued me. I feel the peace and presence that I'd felt earlier that day with Tim and the night before when speaking to Adam and Lizzie from afar (enjoying a much-needed break but still sending their apologies for being absent due to being geographically in another continent!). I feel, for the second time in what is now 10 days since I saw in almost dissociative objectivity my world get turned on it's arse and tossed on the scrap heap, a calm that remains alien to me still but which I trusted that I was safe space to feel.

The conversation earlier in the day with Tim was "at what point do you think you will feel ready to stop wearing your engagement ring?"

I'd thought long and hard about this, was it when I felt 'healed'? Do I feel it's when I'm beyond broken and the sadness turns to anger and disbelief that I didn't see any of the now clearly 'more red flags than a circus tent'. But we learn I guess, will it be when I stop loving her? Do I need to hate her? I came to the conclusion that this time would come only when I could see far more clearly the beautiful moments that I can cherish, than the pain, sadness, grief and finally got to a point beyond the bereavement that sits heavy on my chest, catches my breath when I start to vocalise that "I'll be ok" and I choke on the words.

When I start to feel like, as true as the impulse and urge to defend your young as angry mama bear protecting her 'cub' ... in the self same way that she'd hurtled to the rescue of my bruised sobbing Small that day long since passed where she'd been (unseen by me) punched square in the face by the shitbag at a party, having pinned this as a mental polaroid on a corkboard graffitied with the words "I didn't sign up for this" seeing now, that I was too blindsided by the pretty picture as a photographic memento to take any other fundamentally cohesive meaning (warning) of the bigger memo.

Thinking on it more and mulling over my thoughts in the quiet hours since my tribe - The Family You Choose- left,

I can’t help but wonder if the moment I’m waiting for—the one where I finally take off that engagement ring—is the exact same moment I truly understand that dream.