Could have written the same post!!
Have also read goddess's thread - and laughed at the smugness (ditto) and the poking in the face (ditto).
My DS is nearly 18 months, and always a great sleeper. Would sometimes wake and chatter out in the night, but would settle himself. Only time I ever needed to go in was if he was ill - thankfully very rarely. He had Roseola a few weeks ago, and was poorly for a few days, and so I expected an interrupted night or too. But he is better now and the pattern is continuing....!
Have had a couple of normal nights, but MOST in the last 2 weeks have been him waking and crying out usually between 2am and 3am, and when I go in, he hands me his dummy (which he's going off anyway) which is his getting up signal (we have worked on only having the dummy in the cot for sleep, so he has had to give me it to get up).
A couple of nights he has had a wet bed, so have not been able to put him back into a wet cot anyway, so have changed him, and taken into spare room bed, but it takes up to an hour to get him to stop standing up, stroking my hair, pressing my nose etc etc etc. It's like the Wide Awake Club!!! He just wants to play...
Last night I reduced his bedtime milk, and when he woke at 1.50, I grabbed my pillow and a spare duvet and went in - he was standing up and wingeing; he wasn't wet, so I cuddled him and lay him back down and set up bed next to his cot, holding his hand through the bars, or rubbing his back - etc. It took about an hour to be able to withdraw my hand, and then longer to be able to leave (in fact I woke - very uncomfortable - at 4.10!!).
Am hoping this is just a phase (well of course it IS, but HOW LONG A PHASE!!??). So am empathetic with your situation!! Have no magic wand, so am hoping as goddess reports, it will soon be over. Because as you say - it's a KILLER.... and just as we are TTC#2....!