All this talk of trying to sleep while essentially being on speed has reminded me of this post I've been meaning to write. Namely, my worst nights of sleep EVER. I'm limiting these to adulthood, by the way (but you can read about a couple of childhood sleepless nights here and here). I'm not putting them in any particular order because then I'd have to recall them in too much detail. Shudder.
July 2002, Slovakia. We were staying at my Slovakian cousins' house and their hospitality was warm and heartfelt but not exactly comfortable. At night, Jeremy and I shared a couch whose middle cushion was missing so our bodies were contorted in an awkward sunken V shape as we "slept." Also, my parents were in the same room, and they snored, and also the roosters woke up really early and made a racket.
November 2002, Siberia. Jeremy served his two-year Mormon mission in Siberia and in early November 2002 we took a trip there to visit Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk. We took an overnight train between the two cities and it was so, so very HOT inside the compartment, and impossible to sleep. We asked the train worker lady if she could turn the heat down a bit but she replied with a seemingly unrelated rant about not getting paid enough. After the fact, we realized she must have been making a veiled request for a tip in exchange for turning the heat down. In retribution, she cranked the heat UP a notch. Increasingly crazed by lack of sleep, it was all we could do to restrain ourselves from breaking the train compartment's windows to get at the frozen, -40 degree tundra outside.
June 2009, Tucson. You remember this one. Right around midnight the night before Jeremy's long-awaited dissertation defense, I started throwing up. It was bad enough puking all night long but it was even worse because I realized I was going to miss his defense. It just about broke my heart. To this day, I still have nightmares that Jeremy did not, in fact, finish his PhD. (And if I thought about it hard enough, I think this one would be my number one worst night of sleep.)
September 2005, Tucson. This was not a single night of bad sleep, but rather a whole week of almost no rest. After an unexpected, unplanned induction and 36 hours of labor, Miriam was born. I was so exhausted and so new-mother-worried that I couldn't sleep for days, even when the baby slept. Then she was re-admitted to the hospital with jaundice and since she screamed when she was by herself under the bili lights I had to hold her in an awkward hospital chair for hours at a time...Yeah, it's been almost five years and I am STILL tired from this.
May 2010, Cairo. We were staying at our friends' house and the girls were going crazy at night from jet lag, as in, they wanted to wake up at 3am and go play in the living room. Obviously we couldn't let that happen. Meanwhile, Jeremy and I had almost adjusted to the new time zone so it really felt like 3am to us. Not a fun time, let me tell you. I'm sure our hosts adored us for letting our kids fuss all night.
March 2004, American Fork. I had a UTI that hit its worst stage right when I was about to go to bed. Instead, I sat up all night and alternately peed and watched the special features of the movie Miracle. The next morning I had to go to work and act real chipper as I taught my LSAT prep class. I haven't watched Miracle since, by the way.
What are your worst nights of sleep? Please share. It's therapeutic.
Edited to add: I guess comments are broken...? I'm getting email notifications for them as usual but they aren't showing up here...
July 2002, Slovakia. We were staying at my Slovakian cousins' house and their hospitality was warm and heartfelt but not exactly comfortable. At night, Jeremy and I shared a couch whose middle cushion was missing so our bodies were contorted in an awkward sunken V shape as we "slept." Also, my parents were in the same room, and they snored, and also the roosters woke up really early and made a racket.
November 2002, Siberia. Jeremy served his two-year Mormon mission in Siberia and in early November 2002 we took a trip there to visit Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk. We took an overnight train between the two cities and it was so, so very HOT inside the compartment, and impossible to sleep. We asked the train worker lady if she could turn the heat down a bit but she replied with a seemingly unrelated rant about not getting paid enough. After the fact, we realized she must have been making a veiled request for a tip in exchange for turning the heat down. In retribution, she cranked the heat UP a notch. Increasingly crazed by lack of sleep, it was all we could do to restrain ourselves from breaking the train compartment's windows to get at the frozen, -40 degree tundra outside.
June 2009, Tucson. You remember this one. Right around midnight the night before Jeremy's long-awaited dissertation defense, I started throwing up. It was bad enough puking all night long but it was even worse because I realized I was going to miss his defense. It just about broke my heart. To this day, I still have nightmares that Jeremy did not, in fact, finish his PhD. (And if I thought about it hard enough, I think this one would be my number one worst night of sleep.)
May 2010, Cairo. We were staying at our friends' house and the girls were going crazy at night from jet lag, as in, they wanted to wake up at 3am and go play in the living room. Obviously we couldn't let that happen. Meanwhile, Jeremy and I had almost adjusted to the new time zone so it really felt like 3am to us. Not a fun time, let me tell you. I'm sure our hosts adored us for letting our kids fuss all night.
March 2004, American Fork. I had a UTI that hit its worst stage right when I was about to go to bed. Instead, I sat up all night and alternately peed and watched the special features of the movie Miracle. The next morning I had to go to work and act real chipper as I taught my LSAT prep class. I haven't watched Miracle since, by the way.
What are your worst nights of sleep? Please share. It's therapeutic.
Edited to add: I guess comments are broken...? I'm getting email notifications for them as usual but they aren't showing up here...