I had a foray into a different series of dreams last night.

In the first, I was sitting with one of my work customers in a cafeteria-like setting. Somehow, I stumbled through the words “I lost a baby. Well, two babies. The first one was stillborn, and then I had a second-trimester loss.” He told me that he had lost an adult child (not in real life – just in my dream) and that if I ever needed to talk, I could contact him or his wife.

In the second, I was meeting a customer that usually attends my company’s conferences every year, but was unable to make it this year. I was in a large, Victorian-style house, searching for him. When I finally found him, he said “Long time, no see!” To which I responded “I have to tell you something that happened to me.” Then I woke up.

In the third, I was in my OBGYN’s office, though the setting was unfamiliar to me. My doctor was running late for my appointment, the same doctor who delivered Iris. I had to leave, but the receptionist was adamant that I reschedule. She told me that the results from my skin biopsy had been received and the doctor was very concerned. I tried to tell her “No, I saw a dermatologist for that, it was just a rash, induced my hormones” but the receptionist was insistent that I had a serious problem.

I woke, a bit puzzled over the inclusion of customers – people I do not know very well – in my dreams. But chalked it up to reflections on conversations that I am sometimes forced to have, where I have to recount what has happened, by way of explanation, to people that are outside of my circle. How to adequately explain it? It my first dream, I stumbled over the words “First a stillborn, then another loss” as still struggle with how to describe the enormity of what happened when medically I had one stillborn, one miscarriage. To say “two stillborns” seems to be over-dramatizing. To say “two second-trimester losses” seems inadequate. To say “one stillborn, one miscarriage” makes them seem unequal somehow. There is also timing: with people I do not know well, there is only a brief moment of explanation. Is it simply “two pregnancy losses”? Does that convey what happened in the simplest way possible? I haven’t had to say the words yet to someone I do not know,

As I thought through my dreams this morning, while driving home in the rain after dropping Quentin off at school, I was a little relieved that my dreams did not include scenes from the doctor’s office or hospital at the time when I was experiencing the loss. But immediately upon thinking that, I had a flashback to when I lost Iris, and heard the doctor’s voice “I don’t want to have to tell you this, but I don’t see anything” followed by my choking sobs. My entire body clenched and I had to force myself to breathe and focus on driving. It was so real, so intense. I remember everything I saw, everything around me in that horrible moment, though the doctor’s actual words are becoming less clear. How exactly did he tell me the news? Do I have the words right?

Rain is falling steady today. I transplanted flowers this past weekend, and rain will make the flowers grow in their new location.