James has had a rough couple of weeks
lately when it comes to sleeping through the night. He doesn't choose
to do it. He's been cutting molars, having night terrors, and
fighting off a little cold. Last night he woke up no less than three
times. I'll admit that after nights like that I am far from my best.
But I'm being completely serious when I say I'm thoroughly grateful
for these sleepless nights, toys all over the living room, and the
pantry that gets rearranged daily.
Tom and I got married in the fall of
2004 and had planned to start trying for a family the next spring.
Unfortunately, things rarely go as planned in real life. We had a few
of what may have been early miscarriages during that first year of
trying, though they were never confirmed. During that time I was in
the emergency room on morphine for pelvic pain and got put on regular
oxycodone just to get through life and be a mostly functional person.
My pain was a bit better with regular doses, but we were still not
able to conceive – or at least carry – a child.
In 2007 my pain had reached critical
mass and I finally had a specialist perform a laproscopy, where he
discovered pretty severe endometriosis all around my uterus and
ovaries, and spread onto some of my other internal organs. He removed
what he could at the time and closed me up. I was thrilled just to
know what had been going on all of this time, and I had high hopes
that in the few months after the surgery I would finally be able to
get and stay pregnant. My doctor gave me about a five month window,
saying this would be the most likely time a pregnancy would occur.
After that, the tissue would start growing back, and we would need to
look at other options to help stop and reverse that growth. Those
five months passed and nothing changed, although my pain had
decreased a lot and I was able to stop using heavy pain meds.
In 2008 I did rounds of hormones for
several months to help cut down the endometriosis even more. It
helped even more with the pain, although the hot flashes got pretty
intense (I wasn't too big a fan of the weight it helped me put on,
either, I'll admit). Once again, I was given about a five month
window to try to conceive, but I was told after that I would need to
escalate to further fertility treatments because they had done all
they could do for me at this level. The five months passed, taking a
few more months with them as they went. The pain came back. I'm not
talking about that once a month for a day kind of pain, but the
debilitating pain that at the very least wrecks your day two or three
weeks out of every month.
I really struggled with depression.
Having babies was supposed to be the one thing my body could just
inherently manage to do, and I just couldn't do it. Not only that,
but I got the monthly reminder complete with searing pain that I
would probably never be able to carry a child. I gave away everything
I had ever made or purchased for the child we were planning to have,
because I couldn't handle seeing that box sitting there in the closet
collecting dust. We decided to relocate from Salt Lake City to
Seattle. We both needed a fresh start and just wanted to have full,
happy lives. Living in the same place was sometimes just serving to
remind us of dreams we were having to let go of. We moved, we
adjusted, we got back into normal life.
In spring of 2010 I started coaching
Tom on how to use massage to break down the scar tissue and adhesions
in my abdominal cavity. We did these sessions almost weekly for
awhile, and I noticed a substantial decrease in my levels of pain. My
bishop pulled me aside to chat around this time and said that
although he wasn't sure how it was going to happen, he was certain
that God was getting ready to send us a child, whether biological or
adopted, and that we should start to prepare for it. I didn't really
know how to respond. A part of me resented the fact that he had
reopened that can of worms I had worked so hard to keep closed. But
mostly I started feeling once again the possibility that we might in
fact be able to have a family someday. Somehow.
In March of 2011, I told Tom that I
wanted to get a hysterectomy. I wanted to be able to live my life
without worrying about my constant pain and regular surgeries to
clean out the endometriosis. We decided before I did anything that
drastic, though, that we should give trying to conceive one last
college try for 6 months. About three weeks later, I got to see my
first positive home pregnancy test. I started crying (okay, this was
a pretty typical reaction for me when looking at a pregnancy test)
and yelled for Tom to come over and take a look. I didn't quite
believe I was having a baby until we heard his heartbeat for the
first time.
I had a mostly smooth pregnancy
followed by a month of labor and a traumatic delivery, but we got
through. And at the end we got to bring James home with us. James is
13 months old now and I still feel grateful for his addition to our
family every day. I love being his mama and watching him be his
amazing self. I am so grateful that Tom and I have a chance to try
our hand at being parents. I love my sweet little boy and all of the
messes, stress - and yes, the sleepless nights - he brings into my
life.
Don't take your precious bundles of joy
for granted. They are such a wonderful gift, even on bad days.
-Amy
