A Little Scare (oh and a little bad luck too)

So Monday morning I woke up to some bad news: Devin had been rear ended on his way to work. Luckily, everything was okay, other than some dents and scratches on our new car. It was not his fault, so the driver at fault will be paying to get it all repaired. As I got ready that morning, I thought to myself how glad I was that Devin was okay, but also how glad I was that I was not in the car. I worry a lot about my baby and my pregnancy, as you all might know from previous posts and I don't really want to do anything to jeapordize the baby. My fears are partially due to the fact that a girl in our ward recently delivered her baby at 25 weeks gestation after they were in a car accident. Luckily, after some intense time in the NICU, her baby is alright. But I can't even imagine the nightmare.

So, I thanked my lucky stars on Monday that that was not me. Well, fast forward to Tuesday. I was on my way home from work at Vantage Point. It was just after 11 pm and I was three houses down from ours about ready to be home. A girl, not seeing me, decided to do a U turn in the street and plowed into me on my driver's side door. She was driving a truck, so of course her car was undamaged. I sat there for a moment in shock then finally made my way out of the car (the driver's door would not open, so I had to climb over the seat and out the passenger door). I was really shaken up and immediately called Devin to come out. Another person, a young college aged kid, saw the whole accident and quickly parked his car and came out to see if I was okay. He told me he would stick around until the police arrived so that he could be a witness as to what happened.

The police took forever to arrive, and when they did, it was apparent that one officer was training another, so the whole process took twice as long. I mentioned to the first officer that I saw that I was 18 weeks pregnant and that I was concerned about my baby due to the fact that when I was hit, the seat belt pulled tightly into my abdomen. I was also in a fair amount of pain in my abdomen area. The officer chose to ignore me and continued his work. I was so frustrated and scared that by this point I was in hysterics. Devin was trying to calm me down and assure me that everything would be alright. He finally approached the other officer to tell him that I needed to be checked out. This officer told us that since I was not seriously injured, it was preferable that I drive myself to the hospital since ambulance fees are so expensive. I then called my mom to tell her what was going on and Devin gave me a blessing before we left for the hospital. It was only at this point that I was calmed down somewhat.

We arrived at the hospital and to make a long story short, I was checked by a nurse first, who after a painstaking minute or more (that doesn't seem like long, but believe me, it was ) found the baby's heart beat. I was really relieved then. The doctor came in and told me that he was going to order an ultrasound as well, just in case. We were wheeled off to another room where an ultrasound tech, who did not say one word to us, took pictures of the baby and of my kidneys. I tried to look at the screen, but he wouldn't let me. My head was behind the monitor, so I relied on Devin to take mental note of everything. When he was done, he wheeled me back to the room and then we waited for almost 45 minutes to see the doctor again. All he did was come in and say that things were fine and to go home. I was really frustrated by this point because no one was open and honest with us. The radiologist who read the results didn't come talk to us, the doctor wasn't really sure of what was going on and didn't answer any of my questions, etc. They just simply said, "go home". While I was relieved that everything was okay with the baby, I was just disappointed in the lack of care that went on.

After I talked to my sister the next day, she told us that we could request the ultrasound pictures, which I did not know. I called the hospital and we soon had a disk in our hands with all the pictures that they had taken. Along with that, there was a full report of what the radiologist had seen and everything he said when he looked at the pictures. Yeah, that would have been nice to know when we were in the ER in the middle of the night. I was glad to have the report, but it also frustrated me more, because as the reason for coming to the ER, it stated "Patient is complaining of Pelvic pain". NEVER did I say anything about pelvic pain, only abdominal pain, which they didn't even mention. I only told 4-5 people that it was my abdomen that hurt. So my ranking for that hospital is not so good at this point.

Anyway, long story short, I am okay, the baby is okay. Yesterday and today my neck and shoulders and upper back have been sore, but other than that, I am good to go. Sorry for such a long, dramatic post, but I thought I would update you all on everything that has happened. The Honda is in the shop getting repaired now and when that is done, we will trade in the Corolla to get fixed. Luckily, Devin and I don' t have to pay for anything, since nothing was our fault.

Oh, and we still don't know the gender of the baby, even though we have had two ultrasounds now! My doctor is going out of town tomorrow through the 25th, so it won't be until after that that we can tell. Dumb, I know.