Ahhhh...Sleep

Have you ever thought seriously about the wonder of sleep? As the mother of three children (none of which slept through the night before 18 months), I have come to treasure the gift of sleep. I remember as a child fighting the idea of laying down in the afternoon on Sundays for a nap. What a complete and udder waste of time, I thought. Think of the many things I could do on the Sunday afternoon...play...play..
play, you know, all that important stuff. Now there is nothing better to me than climbing into my big comfy bed at the end of the day to sleep.

Sleep is life-giving, energy-giving, healing, rejuvinating. Imagine God creating a world where we constantly go...without rest. Could you imagine? I often stop and thank God for creating sleep. There's nothing nicer that falling asleep and having a sweet long sleep with "happy dreams" as the kids call them. On the other hand, do you ever have those nights where your dreams are so vivid...you're striving so hard that you wake up in the morning and swear you haven't slept a wink yet? Those nights are awful.

As the sufferer of chronic and extreme headaches, sleep is my saviour some nights. When I get some of my worst headaches, the head crushing, ear ringing, sinus pressing, eye's pounding, nauseous headaches...sleep is literally the only cure. On those nights it's very difficult to fall asleep. Just laying down makes me feel worse. I'll often wake up a few times in the first few hours only to be disappointed that my head is still pounding. But by morning, without fail, I wake up a different woman. My head feels 100%. It's like being a new woman!! I always feel so great on those days because I TRULY appreciate living life pain free again. Sleep can be the great Physician (praise the Lord).

But then, for those of you who have experienced a traumatic experience you know that sleep can also be quite cruel. Sleep finally brings relief from the pain and sadness you feel, but have you ever had sweet dreams where the trauma (loss, death) hasn't happened and woken up so happy and had to re-experience the loss all over again? When my ex-fiance broke up with me 11 years ago, I remember having that experience the first few nights after he left me. It was torture. Like losing him over and over again. I can truly say that is one point in my life when I have dreaded sleep. (Of course I am grateful every day now that God spared me from a miserable marriage where I wouldn't have been myself).

Then there's the sleep of a new mom. You remember ladies...those ghost cries waking you up (when your baby is actually fast asleep), or those times where you're dreaming that you're feeding your newborn and suddenly realize you're not holding him/her and jerking awake to find it's only a dream. Strange!! Maybe I'm odd and I'm the only one this happened to :) There was nothing I wanted more after Izzy was born then to sleep. Actually I remember feeling that after having both Izzy and Obi. My mom came up after Obi's birth and slept downstairs with him bringing him up only when he needed to eat and looking after him for me in between feeds. I'm not sure how I would have managed without her. I guess I'm one of those people who really needs their sleep. I still nap most days when I'm at home. Of course, Lyric still gets up once in a while, so I'm still not sleeping all night EVERY night. Maybe someday I'll outgrow my naps ;)

Finally there are the difficulties falling asleep when I have a client close to her due date. Every night I wonder...will this be the night? Will Joel be home when I need someone to stay with the kids? All the worries that I have absolutely no control over. Or those nights when a client says her water has broken, but no labour...go to sleep I'll call you when things start...YEAH. Now that's a tough one. The adrenaline is pumping and the last thing I feel I will be able to do is sleep. Eventually God blesses me with a few hours of rest before I get the next page and I go another day and a half without sleep (have I mentioned I love my job :)

So there are my thoughts on sleep. The wonders, the blessings, the tortures, the deprivation. I find it hard to imagine that someday I'll be able to sleep as long as I want (one of my favourite things to do at the Bear Trail :) Ahhh...

Mel