I am the complete and utter opposite of a night-owl, so in my 42 years, I can only think of one time I stayed up sort-of all night.
In 2009, my sister-in-law (Mr. FG’s sister) was pregnant with a baby who’d been diagnosed with Trisomy-18. Babies with T-18 often don’t make it to delivery, and the ones who do often do not live long afterward.
But my niece was doing well in-utero, and my sister-in-law was scheduled for a c-section to deliver her a little early.
I drove to the hospital to be there that morning to take photos, and when the nurses were hooking my sister-in-law up to all the monitors, they could not find the baby’s heartbeat.
She was gone before she was even born.
But, she still needed to be delivered.
(Something I learned that day: a c-section is not an option if the baby has no heartbeat.)
My sister-in-law, through tears, turned to me, took my hands, and said, “Hard question. Will you still stay?”
And of course, I said yes.
(Mercifully, my mom was able to help with taking care of my four kids at home so I could stay.)
So, all that day and through the night, my sister-in-law went through the process of induction and labor and I helped her as best I could.
In the wee hours of the morning, my niece was born.
I helped get my niece dressed and cleaned up, and I took many photos of her with my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law.
After a few hours with her, my sister-in-law gave the nod for the nurses to take the baby away (an impossibly heart-rending moment even as I think of it all these years later. How do you decide when it’s time? When are you ready for your arms to be empty?)
The rest of us (her husband, her mother-in-law, and me) left the hospital to go try to get some sleep at the Ronald McDonald house, while my sister-in-law tried to get some sleep at the hospital.
I remember walking out of the hospital, seeing doctors walk in, and thinking, “Why are they arriving in the middle of the night?”
I had completely lost track of time and had no idea it was actually 5 am, time for them to start their morning shifts.
So, that’s my all-nighter story.
Afterward, I was exhausted (crying + staying up all night will do that to a person), but so grateful that I could be there and offer a gift in the form of photographs. There’s not much you can do to help grieving parents; nothing fixes the pain.
But I was able to offer presence and pictures, and I am thankful for that.
Long-time Frugal Girl readers will know that there’s a happy chapter that follows this one; click here to read it.
Oh, yes. Very much yes. Many, many times. It’s the life of a procrastinator in college. And the mother of 7 children who all have an intestinal thing at the same time.
You made me cry this morning, a sad-beautiful cry. Losing a full-term baby would be a nightmare. (A couple of early miscarriages was bad enough.)
Hang on, gotta find a handkerchief . . .
Okay. Like you (of course), I will never, ever stay up all night of my own volition. I can’t even think of a time that I had to be up literally all night with my children–there’s usually a few hours of sleep at the beginning of the night or somewhere in the middle even with illness–but I do remember a time I was awake for 24 hours straight. It was when I was in high school and could fly stand-by for free because my dad was an airline pilot. I got up at something like 2 a.m. to get to the airport for the very first flight and there were so many delays and full flights I couldn’t get on and a shuttle ride to get home at the end of the journey that all told, it took me 24 hours to get from Chicago to Tucson.
I am not an all-nighter kind of person. In college I would sometimes get up early to finish something but did not stay up all night. As a parent I occasionally did not get a lot of sleep when there was a sick child in the house.
Thank you for sharing your story about your SIL. It brought tears to my eyes. I’m glad your relationship was such that she was comfortable to ask you to stay during her difficult labor.
Me too. And I am so glad I could help to make this hard situation a teeny bit easier.
What a lovely story and what a blessing you were to her. People like you move my cynic-o-meter back a hair.
That’s what families are for, you know? I can’t imagine saying no to something like that.
And you seem like the type of person to help out a family member too!
Wow. I know they’re your family and not mine, but I still feel the need to say thank you for staying and being with them. What a gift.
I’ve pulled 2 all nighters in my adult life that I can remember. My first was in college, finals week of my sophomore year. I was at a late night Business Law study group (my prof said he’d stay as long as we wanted him to stay) and around 11:30 someone came to get me to tell me that my roommate needed to go to the hospital. So I went to the ER with her. We got back a little before 6 and I started contacting her professors to let them know what was going on since exams were supposed to start that morning. Thankfully, my Business Law professor let me delay my exam as well since he was there when everything happened.
The second was the birth of my first child. Labor started right after I went to bed and she was born before sunrise. 2 of my 3 labors were in the middle of the night and I actually prefer it over laboring in the daytime.
I have had multiple all nighters for a variety of reasons over the years…ill children, new borns, emergency sewing projects that need to be finished that had been started by another, etc.
Lovely photos and story about your niece and her family.
I used to love staying up late as a kid, and then did lots of all-nighters as a parent and a nurse. The last hundred or so were as a nurse, although I really don’t like night shift at all, but it happens! Someone calls in sick, or there are just not enough staff.
Of course, then I got to sleep (at least some) in the daytime.
When my husband was sick and in the hospital, it was more like time became different. There was always something going on, so it was like catnaps around the clock for six weeks. I would have to look out the window to guess if it was night or day. I guess that level of exhaustion is sort of merciful, as in being too tired to think!
But now, I’m exhausted and going to bed!