Starting the night before Griffin's 5th birthday party, and lasting for about a week, I kept waking up in the middle of the night. Sleepless. I used to hate the sleepless nights, then I did a Bible study on Esther and found that my sleepless nights (and I've had lots during our battle with infertility) were best spent with God. So, I prayed and thought in the middle of the night. I thought about Griffin turning 5, and maybe that we were brought down this road to know that we did everything we could, but that we weren't going to be able to have more children. Maybe we were done. Maybe we weren't meant to be parents of multiple children. The thought is crippling to me, but I feel like I need to get my arms around it. It might be true. As much as I don't want to believe it, we really might not get the chance to have another baby. My doctor may have been right when we went to see him three years ago because we were concerned about our inability to conceive. Maybe we had our one golden egg and that's it. Our golden egg, Griffin. I thought our doctor was nuts, now I think he was being realistic.
I laid awake night after night thinking about the should have, could have would have. Should we have tried a third round of IVF? Should we have explored other adoption agencies? Should we have gone to Chicago for further testing. Should, should should we have? Like it's over. But, it's not. See we can still do these things, it's up to us. But, it's scary. Very scary. What is going to work, cause us the least amount of grief, and allow us to bring another blessing to our lives.
Then, the sleepless nights subsided, which is good because it was turning me into a wreck. I was groggy all day, doing my best to be my best, but I wasn't. I was falling apart all over again.
When I was up one night, I thought I should blog about these dark, over pensive nights. And, i'd call the post "Dark Nights".
We went to Church this morning and a guest did the sermon. She talked about a camping trip. A cold, wet, mosquito filled,week long camping trip with a sleepless, dark night that seemed to drag on forever. Then a wet day with no warm showers and only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat....no hot, delicious food. Those days were tough, but at the end of the week they knew they would have hot showers and hot delicious food. Things would be great again. Just like life. We have the tough, dark nights. Boring food, too many bugs, lack of fun, no warm comfortable showers. Then when we get those things wonderful comforts back, we appreciate them much more. We are better people for enduring the cold, dark nights.
Then she said a word that I never heard during a sermon at church. Infertility. She said, "Some of you may be dealing with your cold, dark night right now. Maybe it's divorce, death, infertility..." I didn't hear much for the next 30 seconds, that word stopped my in my tracks. I was completely choked up and I noticed that Jamie was, too. I was so incredibly grateful for her uttering that word when I needed it most. My cold, dark night will not always be cold and dark. Some day we'll have our cozy bed, hot showers, and delicious food again. The sun will shine down on us. God is good.
I am so glad we were spoken to so clearly today.
And truthfully, although I am deeply saddened by our losses and our inability to have our family grow in the way we had hoped, our life is SO full of many blessings. In between our meals of peanut butter and jelly and our dark nights, we have amazing family memories and mush to be thankful for.
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