August 28, 2025

Sleep training isn’t going how I expected. We were doing so well for a while — little stretches of blissful quiet, moments where I thought, this is it, we’ve cracked the code. And now? We’re on day three of very little sleep. The kind of “very little” where you stop counting hours and start counting how many cups of coffee it takes to feel human.

Being an IVF mom makes this experience even stranger. I fought so hard for Noah. I wanted him with every fiber of my being, prayed for him through years of appointments and injections, and I truly cherish every moment. I don’t take any of this for granted. And yet, I can still find myself on the floor at 2 a.m., sobbing into a burp cloth because my body and brain are begging for rest. Gratitude doesn’t cancel out exhaustion — and exhaustion doesn’t mean I love him any less. Both things can be true.

Every night when I lay Noah down, I send up the same prayer: Please, God, let tonight be the night we all sleep. So far, God’s left me on “read.”

But here’s the twist: while we’re living in the trenches of no sleep, Noah has discovered his voice. He babbles in the sweetest little nonsense syllables, sometimes like he’s narrating his own TED Talk. He’ll coo at his toys, shout at the ceiling fan, and once, I swear, he yelled at the dog. Half the time it melts me, the other half it’s 3 a.m. and I’m googling, “is baby possessed or just overtired?”

The thing about parenting (and IVF parenting especially) is that it’s full of contradictions:

• I can be grateful beyond words and still devastated by the lack of sleep.
• I can laugh at Noah’s midnight monologues and cry over my third cold cup of coffee by morning.
• I can feel both immense joy and complete depletion in the same breath.

Some days I think, Maybe tomorrow will be easier. Other days I remind myself: this is just a season. A messy, exhausting, beautiful, unforgettable season. And when Noah is older, I probably won’t remember which night he babbled for two hours straight instead of sleeping. But I’ll remember the way his little voice sounded when he first found it — loud, determined, like he had so much to tell me already.

So here we are: tired, grateful, overwhelmed, and somehow still standing. If you’re in this season too, just know you’re not alone. We can stumble through the sleepless nights together — fueled by prayer, coffee, and the occasional middle-of-the-night giggle from our tiny dictators.