Being a parent is the one thing I can look back on and know that I've always needed to be. I wanted to be a nurse, a teacher, and musician, a wife. All of those things at some point I lost interest in. The only 2 that I regained a desire for are clearly the musician bit and getting married. When I met Chad I was still strongly opposed to marriage. He is the only reason I did it. God I love him. He's the only partner that makes sense for me. Marriage made sense when I found love with Chad.
So we are 20 weeks now. Half way point is here! Most likely we passed the halfway point at some point in the last 2-3 weeks but I'm still at peace that I'll make it to 36 weeks without incident. Which brings me to the incident....
I had an eerie feeling today. I had just gone to publix and wanted to drop off some stuff at Salvation Army that was taking up my back seat. I had to go home 1st b/c I didn't want my coconut Popsicles to melt and I felt the intuition to stay home. Drop the stuff off tomorrow. I didn't listen.
I'm okay. Oliver is A-okay. I was almost home. My car was the 1st in the left hand turn lane on Edgewood to turn into NJ. I saw police lights to the east and then I saw a car speeding down the suicide lane. He wasn't going to stop at the red light. He was heading right for me. As he swerved through the intersection a van that was turning west onto Edgewood from NJ "cut him off". They didn't see him coming and were turning right on red perfectly legally. After the car struck the van that impact cause him to ricochet into my car and the truck in back of me. Bam, bam, bam. I assumed that he got away but the damage to his car caused his front two wheels to turn in forcing him to stop after trying to get away.
When you know you are about to get hit you're supposed to relax as much as possible to avoid injury. This is why so many drunks survive major crashes. I told myself to just be a limp rag. I still held my breath. Concerned that this was more than just a car accident what with the police chase, I knew not to get out of the car until I was told to. 5 seconds after I got hit my friend Allison who is LPD whips around the corner and jumps out of her patrol car to back up the other cop that had chase the kid down. She sees me and realizes that I've been hit and I know it will all be okay. Right before I got hit I muttered,"it's okay". It has to be right?! As soon as I got out of my car I burst into tears. My adrenaline is pumping, my prego hormones are flooding my mind with relief, fear, thankfulness and anger. I've not had to be over protecting mom yet but all of that came rushing in. Thankfully he was moving almost immediately after the accident. I shouldn't call it an accident as it was totally avoidable. It was a crash. Allison saw that I was shaken up and potentially broke protocol and hugged me. There was a lady who had come out of her house to see what all the ruckus was about who said she was very impressed with LPD being so nice to the scared pregnant lady. I didn't tell her that we were already friends. LPD could use some positive gossip.
Chad was there in about 7 minutes. These events that are out of our control really inspire certain emotions that we aren't used to. It could have been tragic. That kid could have killed people but everyone walked away.
I chose to go to the ER to make sure Ollie was okay. He was moving but I wanted to make sure the placenta didn't tear and that he looked good. Also as an insurance agent I know that pain can be suppressed by adrenaline and if I was somehow hurt I wanted to be sure I sought emergency treatment since it was auto related. PIP claims can be very sticky so you always go to the ER. I got to ride with the driver who caused the fray. He was on a back board b/c he was complaining of back pain at the scene (he jumped out of the car and was walking so I assume he's okay). His name is Caleb and he's 19 years old. He was dirty from head to toe and his speech was slurred. I didn't smell booze but I assume he was under the influence of something not super legal. He just kept saying, "oh shit" on the ride to the hospital along with screaming every time we turned and apologizing, "I never wanted to hurt anybody."
So Caleb was driving on 2 suspended licenses (GA & FL) and was not insured to drive the vehicle he was in. It belonged to his fiancé. She just bought it a few months ago and he totaled it yesterday. When she came to the ER to see him he told her he'd been cut off at an intersection and the brakes failed. The police told her about his suspended licenses and she said she didn't know he'd ever lived in GA. Pretty sure they are not headed down the aisle any time soon!
Not only did this kid hit a pregnant insurance agent but the driver of the van is a PIP attorney and his wife hops out of the passenger side 8 months pregnant! Caleb's fiancé is insured with progressive. This claim is going to ruin her policy.
Hoping the gravity of what could have happened shakes up 19 year old Caleb and he straightens up. I am thankful that he doesn't have to live the rest of his life with death or serious injury on his hands. I'm so thankful that the unborn babies involved are fine. I'm thankful for an intuition that I should listen to better. I'm so thankful that not listening to it didn't put me in a really bad situation yesterday. I'm so thankful that as inconvenient and scary as yesterday initially was, I had a friend there immediately and that set my heart at ease. I'm thankful that Chad knows that though I love being independent I need him big time. I am thankful for how well the emergency services handled themselves and the others involved. Thankful that mom came as soon as she heard and she didn't freak out to much. I have such an incredible support system.
Once we were at the ER Caleb and I parted ways. He was arrested in his hospital bed and I was taken back for an ultrasound. Their protocols are to not allow the mother to see the screen or tell her anything about what they see (for good reason). Sucked that I didn't get to peek but the tech was nice enough to tell me that he was swallowing fluid and yawning. Little Oliver is hard to impress I suppose. He's not head down anymore but that's no concern until we are much further down the line. He tends to hang out on the right up high. It's like a hard ball and I feel his dancing top. left and bottom of the uterus. He's been dancing up a storm while I've been typing. My belly is a bit lopsided because of how he's positioned. So funny.
God I'm so thankful for our safety. I was a bit frustrated with some of the comments I got on Facebook. People saying church garble that pisses me off like, "so glad He protected you." Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. At about the same time in Bartow a woman and her 6 month old baby died in a car crash. Do we say that God chose not to "protect" them? No one is deserving of special God treatment. Things just happen. I am thankful that we walked away fine but I in no way think that God spared me because I'm more special than the mother and baby who weren't as fortunate. Things happen to people. Christians complicate that with the need to be elite. Mini rant over. It's 6:30 now and I may try to post this to the blog and try to sleep a bit.
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