Car Accident :(

Well I ended up in the labor and delivery unit of the hospital much earlier than expected!  And in a city I never would have thought... Las Vegas, Nevada.  Maybe our baby boy was hoping to be born in the city of his dad's mission.  So here's the story.  After spending a few days in Las Vegas with my family, my parents and I parted with Tara and her family and headed towards St. George.  About 15 minutes outside of Las Vegas there was a truck that had blown a tire and rolled on the freeway.  Cops and paramedics has just arrived on the scene and a cop car pulled out into the middle of the freeway to block oncoming traffic.  The cop pulled out suddenly to block the traffic, causing the car in front of us to slam on their brakes and come to a complete stop.  My dad then slammed on his brakes and had slowed down to about 15 mph and was about 15-20 feet behind the stopped car in front of us.  Suddenly without warning we were slammed into from behind by a large truck pulling a trailer going freeway speed.  The truck hit us so hard that it caused all four wheels of our car to skid and then slammed us into the car that had stopped in front of us.  It happened so fast that the two crashes were only about a second apart even though our car traveled 15-20 feet after being hit by the truck.  So we had two huge crashes: first from behind by the truck, and then in front into the car in front of us.  It was the most horrific moment of my life as I am 31 weeks pregnant and the only thing going through my mind was the baby.  Immediately after the accident I got out of the car and stood up, assessing how I felt to see if I was feeling any pain.  Though I had back and leg pain, I felt no pain in my stomach.  I was still so worried about the baby though and just wanted to feel him kick.  He didn't end up kicking for about 10-15 minutes later.  Though I was fairly calm and hoped he was going to be alright, that was a long 10-15 minutes.  My dad was banged up but doing just fine.  My mom was in a lot of pain, was shaking, and was very cold.  Parademics were already on the scene for the first accident and were at our car within seconds.  They ended up taking my mom in a stretcher and myself just sitting in an ambulance to a nearby hospital.  At the hospital they first checked us into the ER and then shortly thereafter took me up to the labor and delivery floor.  Though I was feeling fine, the main concern with car accidents for women over 20 weeks is the placenta ripping off (which is really bad news).  First they did an ultrasound and everything looked good, which was very comforting.  Then they had me lay on my side on a hospital bed and they placed two monitors on me, one to monitor the baby's heartbeat and one to monitor for contractions.  It was great to lay there and hear the baby's heartbeat for the next four hours!  At one point he got the hiccups and it was fun to hear them on the monitor.  Everything looked pretty good, though they kept me for a while becuase I started having mild contractions.  They also had to draw my blood and do a number of blood tests because I have a rare blood type (O negative) which can be dangerous if the baby is positive and our blood mixes.  The tests all ended up coming out negative (which is a good thing) and though I was still having mild contractions and lots of back pain, they felt like I was going to be okay and discharged me at 2 am.  My parents had already caught a taxi to a nearby hotel, and I caught a taxi after I was discharged.  So that's the story.  The next day and still today all three of us are super stiff and sore.  But we are SO GRATEFUL that we are okay, and especially that the baby is okay.  Every time I feel him kick I know we are so blessed!  Things could have turned out so differently if we hadn't been in a safe car, or if we had been hit a little differenlty.  I am so grateful to our Heavenly Father for watching over our family and especially over our baby boy.

Hit #1 - truck hit us from behind

 

Hit #2 - we smashed into the car in front of us