Why I'm grateful for sleepless nights – long post warning

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