By Ghada Karam 
When I was half way through my pregnancy, I dreamt of my daughter running towards me, and something about her face in that dream stayed with me till now.
But before we get carried on, let’s get a few points straight: I don’t believe dreams have premonitory meanings. When it comes to dreams, I believe in the psychological approaches as their foundations make more sense to me. But my convictions stop here, as I never try to obsess about the practical definitions of any dream that I’ve had (life is much more fun than that!).
Dreams for me are just dreams, short and simple.
The night I had dreamt of my baby, I was staring at pictures of my husband and myself when we were kids, trying to figure out what my baby would look like – a pleasurable temptation that all expecting moms have tried.
And at that point in my pregnancy, I had already seen a clear 4D picture of my baby’s face, and I kind of knew what to expect: well-defined lips, big cheeks, rounded face (and you can imagine that I stared at the video of this ultrasound over and over again to review every one of the different expressions that was recorded on that day).
And so, it comes naturally to say that, on that night, my subconscious had secretly compiled all these elements together and created a new face – the one of the little girl I saw in my dreams.
Truth is, the face I dreamt of looks very similar to my daughter’s face today: the curly hairline on the top of the forehead, the big black eyes, the pink rounded cheeks, the pointed chin. But what struck me most was not the features on that face, but rather the big black eyes that were staring at me.
That little girl was running towards me, like she knew I was her mom. But it took me a while to react in that dream because… well, simply because I did not know her. I did not recognize her immediately.
I was not a mom yet.
But the look in her eyes helped me understand who she was.
And for the first time ever, I realized how it felt for a parent to be looked at by a child.
Until then, I had only seen it in other kids’ eyes when they stared at their parents, and without realizing what it really meant for the parent.
On that night, I had experienced the feeling of being a parent for the first time.
It was so intense that I could not wait for my daughter to get born so I can see, for real, that look in her eyes.
Pregnancy for a first time mom is like love for an 11-year old. They know what the idea is about, but they don’t quite understand what to expect.
Through the monthly visits at the OBG, I could witness the progress of my baby’s growth on the little monitor, and the rest of the time I could connect to her each time she kicked (which was practically all day long as I had/still have, a very active baby). But until that night, I did not quite grasp how motherhood felt.
Luckily, it didn’t take too long after her birth to find this look in her eyes. My little monkey has always been very alert and active and since she was a little over a month old, her eyes have been very expressive in many different ways.
Today, her features have evolved a lot and look very similar to the ones I saw in the dream. That little girl looked very happy, and I am glad to observe that my little baby is as happy as the one I saw in my dream.
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