10 Pregnancy Dreams I Want To Live In Real Life

I may or may not (but definitely do) have a slight obsession with the fictional character Ron Swanson, from Parks and Recreation. I mean, what's not to love? He's a whiskey drinking, government-hands-off-my-life, lovable tough guy who is loyal, smart, and secretly kind. Plus, in real life Nick Offerman is married to the one and only Megan Mullally, so he can do no wrong in my book.

I watched a lot of Parks and Recreation when I was pregnant, and clearly my love affair with Ron embedded itself into my subconscious. I used to dream about Ron and a chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A and, well, let's just say things got sexual. I make no apologies.

At first, of course, this dream freaked me the hell out. I did not want to look down after hours of labor and delivery, only to find a labrador between my legs. Not what I signed up for, folks.

However, it's also kind of cool to be able to hypothetically pop a puppy out anytime you wanted. I mean, they're so cute! Plus, now my 2-year-old son is obsessed with dogs and asking for a puppy every opportunity he gets. A quick push and the ability to hand over a tiny corgi would be pretty nice.

I. Love. This. Man. I love him. I have loved him ever since I first saw him, talking about "life finding a way" and being all sexy and shirtless while escaping certain death in Jurassic Park. I have never wanted to be married — even when I was a little girl and my friends were walking around with toilet paper trains, practicing their walk down an invisible aisle — but I would have made an exception for Jeff.

So any time I can fantasize about this man, is time well spent. Thank you, pregnancy hormones, for giving me so many dreams I can lock away in the "sexy time" part of my brain.

I'm a pretty flawed human being, to be sure, and I won't sit here behind the safety of a keyboard and pretend I have all the answers to all of the world's (or even this country's) problems. However, I have a feeling this dream would come in handy right about now. Living every day as Madame President, sitting in the White House instead of costing New York City tax payers more than $1 million every day to remain in a tower? Yeah, I'd take that job. I'd take it in a second.

This was clearly my subconscious whining about not being able to eat all the raw fish things and drink all the alcoholic things. In a way, I'm still a child at heart: you tell me I cannot have or do something, and I will immediately want it and want to do it, even and especially if it really wasn't something I had much interest in beforehand.

So yeah, I used to dream about sitting at a table filled with bottles of alcohol and plates upon plates of delicious seaweed-wrapped treats. I would stuff my pregnancy face until I physically felt ill (I would even wake up feeling full, because dreams are powerful stuff) then dream-me would freak out about harming the fetus. Even in my dream I couldn't eat sushi guilt-free. Ugh.

This one was pretty nice. I dreamt that one day my kid just arrived. Like, I was pregnant and then I wasn't. I missed out on all the pain and all the pushing and all the bodily fluids. My stomach magically shrank back down, like taking bread out of a pan that had been baking for 40 (more or less) weeks, then having the pan turn into a plate.

If this dream was my reality, the decision to have a second child would be a goddamn no-brainer.

I have this fantasy that in an alternate universe, I am the world' best football player. I am obsessed with the NFL (to a fault) and would die if I was allowed to put on a jersey, walk onto any field (although, I prefer Century Link Field in Seattle) and score a touchdown.

Dream me did that at least once a week. (I wasn't very humble as a professional football player, either.)

You guys this was the most craziest, most amazing thing ever. When I was pregnant I could control my dreams. If a dream was starting to get scary (mine often do), I literally could dream-say, "Nope. This isn't real, and I don't like how this is going, so let's change this." I think I was inceptioning myself? Either way, it was so awesome.

I have since lost the ability to control my dreams, now that I'm no longer pregnant. I miss that particular super power.

I was actually a little mad at dream-me for not noticing (or caring) that she was in labor. My anger didn't faze her a bit, though, as I had this reoccurring dream in which everyone around me was freaking about about my labor an and delivery, but I slept through it.

In this particular dream I was also told I was a "bad mother" for not being awake as my body pushed my son into the world, so clearly this was some part of my brain projecting my very-real fear that I lacked the ability to be a good mom.

I also had a reoccurring dream in which my family was just, well, happy. Everything I thought I didn't want before I became pregnant, and everything I was scared I wasn't able to give my son after he was born, was vibrant and normal and beautiful in my dream. I was throwing a football around with my son. My partner was smiling and happy. My son was running between the two of us, tripping and falling in the graceful-yet-hilarious way only toddlers can.

I had so many dreams and plans for the baby that was growing inside my body, and to live those dreams every night (give or take) was really something I have cherished (especially now that my toddler doesn't let me sleep much at all).