I had a dream last night that the hospital had actually sent home a second baby with Veronica, but I hadn’t noticed. Since I hadn’t noticed the other baby, I didn’t feed it and it hadn’t had anything to eat during the night.

It was a dream,so it was only one night I hadn’t fed the child. Veronica didn’t need to be fed during the night because she’s past that, but the new little baby I’d forgotten did and I HAD STARVED HIM.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had that dream, where I neglected and endangered the life of a little new baby. But last night there was a twist:

This little baby was starving hungry because I hadn’t fed it, but it turned out to have the head of a falcon with a big scary beak. I got ready to nurse this poor starving baby -MY FAULT FOR STARVING IT-and I had to try to put my breast into its big scary hungry beak.

Of course the beak was more likely to bite my nipple off than to suck milk, but I had to try anyway. Poor starving thing!  and since it was MY FAULT that it was starving I had better not shy away from being bitten and damn well feed this poor helpless thing.

But beaks can’t suck. And so I kept trying to get a different angle to succeed, which wasn’t working, until I contemplated squeezing milk out drop by drop into the beak so that it could get some food.

Then through sheer wish-power the baby turned into a normal baby with lips and I tried to feed it, but it just *wouldn’t*

Then I woke up, and thought “What a weird dream!”

It wasn’t until I was at work and had cried three separate times about this dream that I realized it was a nightmare. Also, that I really need to quit obsessing about feeding Veronica. I’ve got to be a better police force on my brain and blow the whistle on this stuff.

Eating is something that accumulates over time. She is getting enough to eat, and I KNOW she’s getting enough to eat because Chris gives her huge huge bottles twice a day when I’m at work. I don’t know for sure how much food she’s getting when I nurse her, but I know she’s satiated when I am done.

So, taken on the whole, she’s getting plenty to eat and is very healthy. I need to seriously get over it and stop worrying.

Give her time. Give me time.

She’s fine. I’m fine. We’re fine. I just need to practice being fine.