Fender Bender

This is kind of a long story, just to warn you before hand.

Sunday turned out to be an unfortunately eventful day for us. It started out normal, wake up, go to church, come home, eat lunch, etc. We had a meet and greet at 2:00pm for the new members of the ward and investigators. We baked our muffins and headed over. As we were turning down one of the roads, two cars ahead of us, a guy slams on his breaks, the guy behind him stops immediately, and we didn't have enough time to stop so we slammed into the guy in front of us. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. As we were hitting the guy all of the muffins flew off of my lap, my seatbelt tightened, and my knee barely hit the glove box. Normally in this situation i would have been fine, but being pregnant and having the belt impact my belly it was totally different. Aaron immediately turned to me and asked me if i was alright. I felt fine but all the muscles around my belly were tightening. I told aaron i was fine. He got out of the car to check on the other guy. Thankfully there was no damage to either one of the cars (although the other guy told aaron that he was going to get his bumper fixed--i'm not sure how that works when nothing is wrong). As aaron was out of the car i lost it. I began bawling my eyes out (i blame the hormones). i couldn't feel the baby kick or move and i was afraid the impact had done some serious damage to the baby. I picked up the muffins to distract myself.

Aaron exchanged insurance information with the guy we hit and we decided to go back home and call my doctor instead of going to the meet and greet. She told me that i probably should go to the hospital and get a non stress test to make sure that everything is alright with the baby. I didn't think the situation was as bad as it was until my doctor said the word hospital... the hysterics ensued. I don't know what it is, but i always assume that the worst has happened. Aaron held me for awhile and we said a prayer and headed for the hospital. We made our way to labor and delivery and my doctor had called ahead so the nurses were expecting me. After filling out paper work they put me in a room and hooked me up to some monitors. One was to track contractions and one was to track the baby's heartbeat. The nurse took the heartbeat monitor and dragged it all around my belly. I think she moved it about 27 times. I, as per usual, freaked out because she couldn't find the heartbeat. I couldn't stop staring at Aaron and hoping and praying that the baby was just moving too much. Amidst the silence the nurse says, "okay, its 150." i look over at the machine and realize that the monitor is actually picking up the baby's heartbeat and its going strong. Thank heavens, she was doing well.

Through the next 3 and 1/2 hours aaron and i pretty much sat there staring at stuff in the room. It was really strange because we were in an actual delivery room with all the equipment. I got excited thinking that the next time we would be here we would get a healthy baby in the end (knock on wood) . We had a few routine tests here and there while we were waiting. It took extra long because they got my birthday wrong in the computer and it came out saying that i was born in 1936, making me a 21 week pregnant 72 year old. The woman from the lab, who came to draw my blood, was surprised to see me when she walked in. She said "I didn't think it was possible for a 72 year old to be pregnant but we always have to check." They had to make sure that there was no internal bleeding with the baby, which would show if my blood type was mixed. They also came in to monitor the baby's heartbeat for a longer period of time which was cool because we got to hear her heart and hear her moving around all over the place. I also learned that if the baby's heart rate is erratic and the baby was under stress we would have to deliver. Unfortunately there isn't anything they can do for the baby unless it is 24 weeks old. Thankfully her heart rate was even and normal the whole time. It took forever to get the other test results back from the lab but everything came back negative and since the heart was fine we were free to go.

Its amazing how such an insignificant situation like a fender bender could become so dramatic. What turned out to be a seemingly normal day turned into something that made me realize how important Aaron and this little girl are to me. I'm so grateful to my Heavenly Father that things turned out so well. I hope this is the last eventful Sunday that we have for a very long time (or at least until September).