The accident

On April 8, when I was 15 weeks along, I was in an accident (photo at left). I was driving to work, the same way that I drive every day. Right next to our office is an intersection between a busy street and a side street. It’s common for accidents to occur at this intersection, often because drivers on the busy street don’t even notice that there is a stoplight. I am very aware of this, and I always check to make sure people are stopping before I go at a green light. This morning was the same as always. There was a car in front of me waiting at the red light. It turned green, they went. I glanced over to make sure that all three lanes of oncoming traffice had stopped; the two near lanes had and the lane farthest away was blocked by SUVs but I felt safe going ahead with everyone else stopped. The car ahead of me safely went through, but went I went through I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye as I was in the intersection opposite the furthest oncoming lane. I looked to my right and there was a big truck going full speed right towards me. It was only a split second but I knew without a doubt that he was going to hit me and there was no way to avoid it. He slammed directly into the passenger side, T-boning me, and sent my car spinning 90 degrees around. I was so shocked but managed to stop the car and pull it forward and turn off the engiine. Then I just burst into tears. Some well-meaning guy, not sure who he was, approached my car and said “are you OK?” and I literally screamed at him “NO I’M NOT OK I’M FUCKING PREGNANT!” I was absolutely hysterical from fear for the baby. All I could think was that I needed help. Someone said they were calling 911, I fumbled for my phone and dialed my office. I asked Carolyn, our office manager and “grandma” of the company to send someone out. She sent out her son Bill, my boss, who was the perfect person to have in a moment of crisis. I asked him to also get Kathy, my friend and coworker, so that she could stay with me. Bill heroically took care of all the necessary details like getting the names of witnesses, talking to the police, writing down the name of the towing company, etc. Kathy gave me big hugs of comfort and followed the ambulance to the hospital.

I felt OK for myself but I just had to know if the baby was OK or not so I asked that they take me to the ER. That was a frightening experience. The paramedics were very nice and tried to joke around to lighten the mood but I just could not stop crying the whole time. Amber met us at the hospital and when I got a room she came back to stay with me. After talking to some nurses a doctor came in to do an ultrasound. Luckily she could not find anything wrong with me or the baby. She thought maybe I would have to stay for several hours in the maternity ward for observation, but they let me go right away. She presented this like it was a really good sign, and I was truly grateful to be able to leave that horrid hospital and go home, but actually the reason they didn’t keep me for observation was because I was too early in my pregnancy; there was nothing they could do is something was wrong. It was too early for the baby to live outside the womb, so basically they felt like there was no point in me staying. Either I was going to have a miscarriage or not, and they couldn’t really do anything about it. But I was just glad that there was no obvious damage and just wanted to get the hell out of there. The doctor who examined me was a real bitch, sorry but I have to be honest here. She really offended me not once, not twice, but three times in the short period she examined me. First, she asked who my physician was and when I told her I didn’t have a doctor, I was just seeing the midwives at the Austin Area Birth Center (more on that in a separate entry to come), she really gave me a hard time. She told me all about how she knew someone who had a baby with a midwife, and the baby was stuck and not getting enough oxygen, and the midwife waited too long to do anything about it, and the baby ended up dying. Great. Here I am, out my of mind with fear about the current state of my baby, and she stops to tell me that story?? I just could not believe it. Then, she asked how I’ve been feeling, and I tell her about my morning sickness, and she says yeah she had bad morning sickness too and she didn’t want to be bothered with it so she put herself right on medicine for it so she could go about her life without that inconvenience. She said she could write me a Rx for it too. Well, that drug is only supposed to be for women with really genuinely serious symptoms—for women diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarium, where you literally can’t keep anything down and start to lose weight and have to be put on an IV. Most women do experience morning sickness but only a tiny precentage are that severe. Obviously I did not qualify for that and I doubt she did either. She was just prescribing it willy nilly. I am not going to take any kind of drugs during my pregnancy if I can avoid it, even Tylenol. I mean, I just got through explaining to her that I wanted to have a natural childbirth. Why would I take another drug? And she actually really tried to push it on me; she asked again two other times “are you SURE you don’t want the medicine?” like I was a fool to not take it. The third offense was when she asked what my blood type was and I said I was O negative. She said that if she thought there was a chance that my blood and the baby’s blood had mixed, then they would give me a shot of Rhogam. [Aside: if a mother’s blood type is negative and the father’s is positive, then there is a chance that the baby’s blood could be positive and then the mother’s body will treat the baby as a foreign substance that must be fought and repelled. It’s called Rh incompatibility.] I had already heavily researched this and was expecting her to bring it up. I explained to her that Mark had exactly the same blood type as me, O negative, so therefore the baby had to be O negative too and there was no danger of Rh incompatibility. Well, she was not convinced. She said “are you sure he is the father?” and I was like “uh, excuse me? Of course, yes, he is the father!” but she wouldn’t give it up, she stared into my eyes and said very forcefully “it’s really important that you be honest about this, because it could cause problems. Are you SURE he is the father?” I stared right back at her and said “YES-HE-IS-THE-FATHER.” What I should have said was “f--- you!” I mean, I am still totally shaken up from everything that’s happened, and instead of being comforting and helpful, all she does is give me the third degree, question my choices as a mother, imply that I’m going to kill my baby, try to force drugs on me, and then question my fidelity in marriage? I was so angry at her and the whole experience really convinced me that I had made the right decision in not having a hospital birth.

Anyway, everything was fine, I went home and rested. Amber stayed with me and helped a lot with emotional support since Mark was out of town on tour. The next day I was really sore all over and had trouble moving around, but I stayed home from work and felt better the day after that. The person who hit me admitted that it was entirely his fault; he hadn’t even seen the stoplight at all. I never talked to him but apparently he felt awful. Mark’s car, which is what I was driving, was totaled.