mommy and daddy are here...

imagine the sound of a infant screaming. a sweet, innocent little child crying out as loud as her tiny lungs will allow. imagine this scream coming from the room down the hall. piercing the air and igniting your heart. imagine its the middle of the night. and imagine that she's your baby. yeah. its the worst. the first time that we heard that sound it was about a month ago and we had just settled in for the night. annabel had been sleeping for about two hours, cheryl and i had brushed our teeth, finished our prayers and just turned off the light. and then it happened. it started with what sounded like a little gasp or cough. then a quiet little cry. then another. and then all of a sudden a blood-curdling, mind-blowing, gut-wrenching wail of a scream to wake the dead. in the blink of an eye cheryl was out of bed, over the dogs, down the hall and holding our precious little baby in her arms. "its okay sweetie. you're okay. mommy's here. you're okay baby." and as quickly as it started, the screaming was gone. and all we had left was a tiny, peaceful angel of a baby with tears down her cheeks in the arms of her scared and sweaty mama. we had just experienced annabel's first nightmare. can you imagine?

according to many sources, babies begin dreaming when they are just a few weeks old. "REM sleep waves have been found at as early as 28 weeks of gestation, and REM sleep waves accompanied by the eye movements of dreams by 30 weeks of gestation." (Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine in the Child, WB Saunders, 1995) that's kind of crazy. the thought of a baby dreaming while still in the womb is a little mind-boggling. what do they dream about? what thought processes, images or ideas have they even formed enough to dream about? weird.

so maybe babies can dream. surely they are happy dreams, right? "We know from older children that nightmares commonly follow surgery, tooth extraction, and motor vehicle accidents. Why wouldn't they follow childbirth? We don't want to believe that our little ones experience anything unpleasant. Knowing how much young babies dream and cry (and wake up crying), it seems absurd to me to believe that all of their dreams are happy ones. Birth is a wonderful and terrible experience. There is much to be happy about and much to learn about in the weeks that follow. Babies' dreams must incorporate and address those things that bring them pleasure and those that make them cry. In all likelihood, the peak age of crying, the first six weeks, is also the peak age of nightmares. These nightmares are not unsuccessful dreams. Far from it! They help babies learn and grow; nightmares may even be an important reason that crying diminishes after six weeks." (The Truth About Dreams, Nightmares, and Night Terrors, Alan Greene MD, FAAP, 2001)

whatever the reason, some of our scariest and most painful moments have come when we have heard annabel screaming. it hurts us both so deeply to know that she has something going on inside her head that is terrorizing her enough to cry out. being a parent has taught us fairly quickly that no matter how diligently we guard and protect our child, we can't keep her safe from everything. but i'll be damned if we won't be there each and every time to pick her up, hold her tight and tell her that everything is okay...mommy and daddy are here.