One Rough Week

This year the season has been hard on me. I'm pregnant with my second child, and this pregnancy is nowhere as smooth as my first one was. I also have my four year old, and while he is a joy, there are times where life can just get plain crazy. I don't remember Christmas being this hard for me while I was pregnant with the first, but my husband points out that I had a desk job where I sat all day and I didn't have a child who demanded the attention that I give him (and I am by no means complaining!). Not to mention I'm five years older than I was before. (And it's not only the Christmas season that I feel that I was behind on. The whole school year has felt like that so far.)

I find that I just can't do the things that I used to be able to do after leaving school. And with school getting out just three days before Christmas, that didn't leave a whole lot of time to do any shopping. And since I didn't want to hit the mall or Wal-Mart the Saturday before Christmas, I did all the shopping for my husband on the 16th. Little Guy and I spend about five hours between MacFrugals, Wal-Mart and Boot Barn. In the interest of self preservation, after seeing the parking lot at the mall I decided to forgo that plan and have my husband go and get the gift cards during the week. Little did I know that was the best decision that I had made all month.

On Sunday, I hit Michaels looking for some ornament kits so that my kids could make presents for their parents. When pictures are taken, the teacher gets a strip of about five pictures of each child. I wind up using them for gifts or something for the parents. Well, it seemed like more than a week before Christmas and already things were out of stock. Great, I really didn't have a plan B for the presents, and I had made up my lesson plans with this activity in the forefront. Crap, what was I going to do?

On Monday I emailed my mom (who is also a first grade teacher in the district that I work in) and asked her what she was doing, and if I could steal her ideas. No problem, was the reply, stop by her school on the way home from my school and she'd have the stuff ready for me. Great! I was saved!

Stopping by my mom's school meant taking a different route home. No big deal, turn right here instead of left, left up ahead at the light, and I'd make Grand Ave a mile up the street. However, it turned into a nightmare.

I got into the left hand turn lane and as I was about 150 feet from the light I hit something. My first thought was, "What the hell..." as I hit the brakes. Then I saw it was a person. I freaked out. Totally freaked out. I didn't know if I was coming or going. I tried to call 911, but someone else already had them on the line, and I was left just standing there and I was getting hysterical. I HAD JUST HIT SOMEONE! Not good. And as the wife of a PPD employee, really not good!

Thankfully, the people who stopped to help (this was a busy intersection and one under construction at that, traffic was backed up for at least a quarter mile just for the red light) were wonderful. I had so many people trying to comfort me and supporting me. I don't know if they felt sorry for the pregnant lady or what motivated them, but faith in my fellow man to do good when put to the test was somewhat restored. I was starting to move from hysterical to terrified. How many times on the evening news do we hear about something like this happening, and I was scared that even though this guy stepped out of nowhere in front of me, I would be arrested or something. I called my husband (who was off that day, thank God) and he got there as fast as he could. That was the one thing I focused on, get hubby here, he can help me.

The cops got there really fast, and as it turned out, Vehicular Crimes was the first on the scene. The officers couldn't have been nicer. But I was still scared silly. The ambulance had come and gone, taking the guy with them. He hit the truck hard and the ground harder. His leg was broke and he wasn't responding. While all the witnesses were adamant that there was nothing I could have done to prevent this accident, I still wasn't sure about what was going to happen. Thank goodness hubby showed up then, and I had him to lean on. The first thing he asked the detective was if anyone had looked at me because I was six months pregnant. Uh-oh. In all the excitement(?!?) I had forgotten to mention that. But the baby was kicking still so things were OK.

I talked to the detective some more, the detective talked to the witnesses and it turned out the Sergent on Duty was one that hubby knew and quite a few officers were aware that I was the wife of a PPD employee. Turned out that hubby called the office to find out what they knew, and word spread rapidly that I was involved. Hubby is well liked and respected so everyone was keeping an eye on things for us.

Finally the detective released the witnesses, but we had to wait for a tech crew to come and take pictures of the scene because at the time, the guy was in critical condition, and it didn't look good for him to survive. Great, just what I needed to hear. But that news was tempered by the detective telling me that from what he heard from the witnesses, the statements I had made and the scene, that I had done nothing wrong, there was nothing I could have done to prevent it and they were not going to cite me. OK, I guess I could breathe again.

But no, here comes Channel 5 with a newsvan... Nothing ever aired, the guy didn't die and there was no dirty laundry to air. But it's still unnerving. I had a girlfriend whose baby died when she accidentally left her in the car, and I know the court of public opinion can be deadly. The last thing I wanted was to be smeared all over the TV.

Finally the tech crew showed up and got pictures of everything and we left three hours after I left my mom's school. The detective promised to keep in touch with us with what he knew and not to worry. I made hubby drive the truck and I drove the car home. I DID NOT want to try to get behind the wheel, but what else could I do? I had to get to and from work, it didn't make sense to delay and just get more jittery about it. So I drove.

While I didn't have any immediate reaction to the accident with the baby, over the next couple of days I had some tightening of my tummy, so when I called hubby at work, he said that I should probably go to the ER. (He was not the only one to encourage me to do this, but he was the deciding factor!) So Wednesday night I spent about four hours in the ER with a stress belt across my stomach to monitor the baby. Baby is fine, I am fine, it was probably just a reaction to all the stress and the fact that my water intake is really bad. Boils down to dehydration. And apparently dehydration will cause early labor. So now I'm drinking water like it's going out of style.

Needless to say, it was a hellish week. The kids were squirrely and didn't want to be at school, most of the teachers were right there with them, and I spent two nights in places I really didn't want to be. But we are all safe and sound now, and counting our blessings.

**Note: At last communications, the guy was still in critical condition, on life support. Things still aren't looking well.