Fire Alarm*

The Hubster and I have had a busy week, so last night we tried to go to bed early. We were in bed by 10pm, and after watching/falling asleep to an episode of Seinfeld, we decided it was time to turn in. I’m pretty sure I was out cold before he even turned out the light.

At 12:45am I woke up suddenly to a loud, consistent beeping which I immediately recognized as our smoke detector. I cried out to the Hubster who was still a bit groggy and we both seriously jumped out of bed. You need to understand that having a fire in our home is one of my biggest fears. I am that person who checks twice each night to make sure the oven is off, candles are blown out and any fire hazards are eliminated before being able to fall asleep.

We were almost out the bedroom door when the alarm suddenly stopped. My heart was racing a mile a minute and I began to feel sick to my stomach from moving from the bed so quickly. (sorry, little one!)

I sat on the edge of the bed while the Hubster went to investigate. We quickly realized that though we have more than one smoke detector on our upper floor, only one had gone off, and we could see absolutely no cause. The detector that went off is actually hard wired into the ceiling and only uses a battery as a backup. We moved from room to room on each floor as the smoke detector shifted from the alarm to a chirp every minute or so, much like one would when the batteries need to be replaced.

We were both still unnerved, so the Hubster called our local fire department to see if this could just be a fault with the detector (whose backup batteries we had just replaced) or if we should be concerned. The person we spoke with said that she couldn’t make a definite call on the cause for the alarm without actually seeing the detector and offered to send a truck over, but as we had thoroughly checked the house and no other alarm had gone off we decided against it. By now we had been awake for almost an hour and were already dreading the 6am alarm for work.

The Hubster held me close and promised me that everything was alright before drifting off to sleep.

I lay awake for some time thinking that my house was going to burn down, obviously.

(I actually got up one more time just to make sure that there was no smoke anywhere near the detector. My super sensitive pregnant nose couldn’t detect anything.)

After my second check through the upper floor, I finally drifted into an uneasy sleep with dreams about police and fire fighters banging on my door trying to get us out. I managed to sleep through my alarm before leaping out of bed at 6:40 to get ready for work in a whirlwind.

Thankfully I was back at my favourite school again today and though I was exhausted, the day at work was great.

I called my fire fighting brother-in-law when I got home to ask about last night’s adventures. He was familiar with the type of smoke detector we had, and believes that either a power surge caused the alarm to go off, or the unit itself was simply showing its age and faults. We’re pretty sure the detector is as old as the house, so we went out tonight to buy a new one.

While I’m so grateful that there really wasn’t a fire, the whole night was still a bit traumatic. I’m sure I’ll find the whole thing hilarious in a week or two, but for now I’m too tired to even see straight.

Fingers crossed for no alarms tonight! ;)