The long but beautiful story of the miracle baby

The morning of Saturday, September 24th started just like most mornings over the last 14 months. I got out of my “bed” which had become the couch just before 6 after fighting through another night of not falling asleep. I mean- not sleeping whatsoever even after swallowing a little pill the night before that was supposedly one of the most effective and potent medications prescribed for insomnia. This most recent chapter in our long battle with insomnia had really torn me apart. Granted, I was finding sleep every few nights which was far greater than some of the weeks spent in this nightmare but it wasn’t for certain and the anticipation, anxiety, and genuine fear that now existed around something seemingly so natural had robbed me of the little joy I might feel after even a little sleep. I had seen 13 doctors and tried 12 different medicines over the past year+ all with little success. We had literally turned to everything possible to try to take a stab at this disease or symptom or whatever the doctor wanted to call it and that “constant search” was stealing me and my family of just a normal life with two little ones.....which should be trying enough alone. We spent our savings on every type of therapy and doctor that had been mentioned to us. More so, we had fallen on our knees so many times and really for the likes of a solid year we had heard no real answers. But the more we tried to find an answer or some relief the bigger the problem became.

The last doctor seemed to be a God send as he really understood the problem and he was realistic about the progress I could make. He didn’t promise me sleep in 11.5 weeks as one holistic doctor had told me if only I were to buy in to a whole regime of natural supplements. He hadn’t told me just to wait it out until my hormones from the two back-to-back pregnancies leveled out. He affirmed me that my burden was heavy and that it was barely understood and that it would take a very long time to get to the bottom of it because I had made it so big by even trying to solve it so relentlessly. Though I had finally found a doctor that most seemed to “get it” I still felt very alone. I knew I wasn’t facing a life threatening cancer but in my own way this had become my cancer. No one can truly comfort you when they aren’t in it....experiencing the emotion, the deflation, and the exhaustion for themselves. I had come to a place where it seemed there was truly no answer. The week prior I had just emailed a trusted group of friends whom have walked this journey with me as best as they could during this year. I had asked for wisdom or prayer or anything as my new doctor was wanting to add a 2nd medicine to the the already powerful 1st medicine that wasn’t working. I had delivered my first child naturally for no real good reason at the time. I just felt deep down that I was supposed to do it. After that experience I could see this whole mentality transforming the way I had always thought about my health. But then the very next year everything at my core was challenged as I went through medicine bottle after medicine bottle to find any relief. It literally brought me a little lower each night as I shut my eyes and swallowed a pill and hoped not even for sleep but for the ability to relax and let go.

So that Saturday in September changed my life, my faith, and my story for good. It was half time of the Georgia game and I had come home from a morning out away from the boys and Brad. I had had a weird conversation with a random stranger that morning that had me thinking. She was sadly talking about a friend whom wished she had aborted one of her twins because the one was having development trouble. They were 10 weeks old. My heart was broken for this woman somewhere in Atlanta and I drove home just praying that God would change that mother’s heart and comfort her in a way she had never known. Though I was in the middle of the heaviest trial I had ever faced I had seen my two little boys as the gifts that God gave me in the storm. They were truly my only hope and the one thing that kept me going each day. I knew I couldn’t just fall apart no matter how tired, frustrated, or hurt I was with them watching.
This conversation had me thinking about my own recent decisions. We had our first two boys 14 months apart and I had said ever since the youngest’s birth last year that I would do it again if only I was feeling better. But to eliminate any possibility for the most selfless thing to happen in the middle of what felt like the most selfish season of my life...battling for my health and sanity...I went “all the way” and had the IUD put in a few months prior. I don’t really know what I thought about it, I just knew that there was no way we could be surprised again with a baby when I was a mess and my family was barely treading water. The IUD is reportedly 99.999% effective so short of abstinence I was feeling pretty confident.

Anyway, the whole day the random woman’s comments sat with me. When I came home briefly that Saturday I went to change my clothes, use the restroom, and you know...take a pregnancy test. It wasn’t possible that I was pregnant but I just had to see the little thing say “No” because all I could think about was the heavy cocktail of medication my doctor’s had me on for the past several months. What if a doctor were to ask me to abort a child because of the harm I could have caused from medicine? I don’t know why I kept thinking this...I just wanted to understand this woman’s friends’ heart. How could she ever think that abortion would have been the better option?
I came stumbling down the stairs from our bathroom and asked Brad “why does this thing say I am pregnant? I can’t be pregnant. It’s not possible?” Brad asked if I ever really had the IUD put in, sort of jokingly. He then came over to see what I was seeing and he, too, was a little baffled. It wasn’t clearly a “yes” but it wasn’t fully a “no.” So he did as I never thought he would do and left the Georgia game to go to the drugstore. $20 later and with the top of the line test in hand, the one that can’t be misread - it says either pregnant or not pregnant - we tested again. Inside I was thinking the worst. Not even that I was pregnant but that maybe I had some weird cancer or tumor as I had always thought and for some reason this test was showing positive. I mean, I had the IUD in...the birth control that is 99.999% effective. More so, there was no way God or the stork or anyone could think that a baby, right now, would be a good idea. It would truly be the last straw.

Well, the handy-mac-daddy pregnancy test took 2 minutes and just before the game came back on the little test read PREGNANT.

I wish I could say that the rest of the afternoon was all giggles and screams and hugs. It was so much the opposite that I almost wish not to recall the details. Let’s put it this way - I was petrified of what this meant. I couldn’t even think that the word “PREGNANT” meant a baby or anything else. All I could think is that somebody messed up. Ashamedly, it was the most selfish feeling I had ever felt. Why would a God that I believe in and have waited patiently for a whole year to save me have allowed this to happen? What would I do with the new medicine that I was 4 weeks into and against all recommendations I was not supposed to just stop, cold-turkey? Brad tried to bring joy to the situation and talked about the 3rd child that would join us and how we had wanted them close together anyway. He said atleast they would be 22 months apart which seems like icing compared to 14. He was very sweet and genuine but honestly all I felt was pity. He wasn’t the one not sleeping. He wasn’t the one in a knot of turmoil and intense anxiety over having to take a medicine that wasn’t even working. And he wasn’t the one now carrying a child. How could I give anything to a baby when I felt like the worst version of myself? My mom always says I don’t get angry easily but I was angry. I was angry with God for my new predicament and I literally felt absolutely helpless for the first time through the whole thing.

That night after trying not to think about the obvious - Brad and I had to decide what to do with my medicine. It was clear to him. I was pregnant. The medicine is strongly discouraged during pregnancy so that was that. To be honest, I just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up for many weeks and only then when there was another solution for my sleep situation. Clearly, he didn’t understand the place I was in but I am grateful for his wisdom and foresight especially in the crucial times.

We prayed together that night that God would pick us up when we were at the bottom and that He would protect this new life from the harmful things that had been in my body. He went upstairs that night around 11. I gave him a half crooked smile and told him I would see him in the morning as I took my usual position on the couch. And I wept like I never knew I could. I didn’t know that I wouldn’t take the medicine. I really didn’t know what I would do. It felt like time had stopped and it was just me and my couch and my medicine and the big fact that I didn’t know how to sleep on medicine, let alone throwing it all away. Rebound insomnia was a sure thing -there was no way I could escape that.
That night was one of the loneliest places I had ever been. Somewhere after 3 I finally fell asleep for a few hours. Brad woke up early on that Sunday to come check on me and as he walked down the stairs I looked over and just cried and laughed and melted at the love that had bombarded my heart in those two hours of sleep.

God, my Healer, changed my heart, my perspective, and my story for good that long night. That Sunday morning I knew that God had sent the impossible as an answer to my problem. I had actually slept for a few hours which was a few more than I had the night before on medicine. More than that, the fear, extreme anxiety, and, worry were gone. Completely. The Lord had truly sent a child to deliver us from the worst year of our lives and though it was highly unlikely to get pregnant - that is just what I was, pregnant and free for the first time of the dark cloud that had been over me.
The next two nights I slept a tad bit more but I never really thought about the sleep. I just knew my prayer for an answer had come and my spirits were completely different. On the 4th night I fell asleep, in my own bed, and awakened 7 hours later for the first time since before William’s birth. Each night that was farther away from the medicine and the commotion caused over the medicine was a little better. And then about 10 days later the beautiful pregnancy hormones kicked in and I started sleeping like I never had before. 2 hour naps everyday while the boys napped and falling asleep on the couch at night at 8:30...that kinda sleep! And each day I was more and more humbled over the love that God had shown me through this miracle baby.

We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary in October and Brad commented on the way home that it was the 1st date in months that we didn’t talk about sleep or doctors or the latest person I had spoken to whom had had a similar experience. It was so refreshing. Like I said, the sleep is nice but it was never really the sleep that I wanted back so desperately. It was the peace of mind. The race from doctor to doctor to therapist to the pharmacy to any book on sleep or anxiety to the acupuncturist to the internet had absolutely robbed me of my joy. I had felt like if I didn’t find the solution no one would because my situation seemed to baffle everyone I met. I had never experienced anxiety and I didn’t seem depressed..... My blood sugar, hormone and any other level always seemed just fine so I was always sent on my way....to figure it out on my own. I finally had my peace of mind back and I felt alive again. I had claimed this whole year that God would do something big with my story. I knew it deep down but I had started to think that insomnia would just be my cross to bare. And who knows...maybe it is? But I can honestly say with confidence now that God has done something with every night I spent alone, in fear, and burdened over the turn of events.
The speaker of my bible study for mom’s spoke at our first meeting this fall about being “seen” by God. I wrote this on my paper and scratched it out that day. I knew God was with me and He wasn’t going to let me die over my lack of sleep but I surely didn’t feel “seen” by anyone.

But can you imagine how “seen” I felt that first morning after actually falling asleep without having to swallow anything? And to have felt like myself again for the first time through a very very long season of sadness?

Our miracle baby will join us sometime around mid-May. I still sleep better than I did before but as we are now in the 2nd trimester the new found energy burst has helped me feel better but has also left me awake at night. My attitude about the lack of sleep is completely different and I know it is just a process of retraining my brain and body how to sleep even if I am not drooling on the couch at 8pm the way I was those first beautiful weeks of pregnancy. More so, the one goal that I had told my last doctor - that I wanted to be able to sleep without medicine has been fulfilled and the lack of anxiety that comes with that is overwhelming. My peace of mind is so much better.

Of course on this end I wouldn’t trade one tear, one sleepless night, one heart-wrenching conversation, or one pleading prayer for this surprising news. We are so excited about this new, beautiful addition to our family! What an unexpected answer to prayer for us.