From start to finish, the last five days have had
more parallels to the events surrounding Jackson’s death than I could have ever
imagined.
The biggest difference is the most important, and I
don’t want to lose sight of that: Dash is alive and growing well.
For the sake of putting it all out there so that
anyone who cares can read what kind of refining fire I went through this week,
let me explain.
Thursday was the anatomy scan for our daughter. The
first obvious difference was that her head and legs were measuring just a
couple of days ahead of where she
should and that’s perfect and normal
for my healthy pregnancies. It was at the anatomy scan where we discovered
Jackson was no longer growing.
However, Dash had the hiccups when they were
measuring her abdomen and the first few measurements all came up very large (almost
2 weeks ahead of dates), which is a sign of a variety of problems that I'm not
even going to look up out of fear. It
took several heart-stopping minutes for the ultrasound technician to catch the
measurement between hiccups. In the end, she caught an image that measured
18w+4d, so only a day or two ahead of the rest of her measurements and that is
just fine.
But as I lay there, watching her try to catch image after image, and
the measurements not showing favorably, I couldn't help but fight panic. I had
to focus on my breathing harder than I have in awhile.
She also didn't want to cooperate on the images of
her heart. The tech needed a picture of all 4 chambers in her heart and was
having a really hard time getting the right image. In the end, she settled on a
blurry one that still pretty much showed the chambers, but it wasn't easy to
see.
We went home, knowing our daughter is growing, but
knowing we have several weeks to go before we’ll start planning for her birth.
Fast forward to Saturday morning. . . It was cool and
rainy; the first day we’ve had like that in months. I decided to wear my plaid
blue H&M maternity shirt for the first time since March. It’s lightweight,
has cute cuffs that roll up, and was the shirt I wore proudly to the National
Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, with my dad when he and his wife
were visiting. It was also what I wore that last time I felt Jackson moving.
Before I left the house to run a quick errand, I had to change. I can't wear that shirt and will be donating it
because the memories just hurt too much.
Our family had been invited to attend a fair with
relatives and it was decided that since most of us were down with colds, that
only our oldest would go. The rain changed the plans and guess where the family
decided to go? The Natural History Museum.
Did I mention that it was a cool and rainy day when
we went in March?
I initially texted my FIL that none of us would be
going because I couldn't stand the thought of even one of us going there on an identical weather day, following the
anatomy scan, with grandparents, like we’d done in March. But my mother-in-law
called and asked specifically to take my oldest, so I agreed and spent the next
20 minutes crying because I just didn't know what else to do.
As my oldest changed her clothes, she heard me
bawling and came to my room to check it out. When she gave me “the look”, I
just asked, “When was the last time you went to the museum?” It took her all of
8 seconds until her eyes got really big and she came up and just hugged and
hugged me. I don't think she let me go for several minutes.
I felt like the worst mother, sitting on the edge of
my bed being consoled by my 8 year old daughter. Shouldn't it have been the
other way around?
When I told my husband about it, I was worried that
he’d be upset I’d let her see me cry like that but instead he supported me,
saying essentially that he thinks it’s healthy that our children see our
emotions because they can learn from them. I really appreciate how he worded it
(he worded it better than I did here.)
Sunday I woke up feeling pretty strong and decided
to attend more of the baby blessing events than I had planned on. It helped
that our best friend was going to be there—he is not only a very close friend
of ours, but many of the Terry clan. My SIL had invited him to the baby
blessing and luncheon and he’d accepted.
I walked in, taking a deep breath as I did so, and
sat down. Shortly thereafter, some additional guests arrived. I’d met them
before at a couple other gatherings. They’re sweet women with caring hearts.
One of them commented, “Talia! I heard you had a baby!”
And my heart STOPPED. I didn't know what to say and
it completely deflated any and all reserves I’d built up.
I think I responded with something along the lines
of “I did. He died the day before his birth and we’re expecting a little girl
now.”
I don’t like the response I gave. It downplayed the
enormity of what I went through and I felt like by including the comment about
our daughter, that it sounded like I was replacing my son and it was no big
deal.
And that’s definitely not the case.
I managed to keep my cool until one small and fairly
normal thing happened. It’s something I’ll keep to myself but then I couldn’t
sit there anymore so I grabbed my purse and my children’s play clothes and
walked out to the van with tears streaming down my face and sat there until
everyone else was ready to drive to the church, grateful there was an entire
box of tissues at my feet.
The baby blessing itself was beautiful and I’m glad
I was there to hear it.
And true to form, Dash started kicking as soon as we
were on the road again. She has a thing for riding in the van—it always wakes
her up and she becomes very active when I’m in it!
But we won’t be in the van much for a couple of
weeks. Why? That’s the last parallel I
get to share.
Five days after giving birth, we were rear-ended at
a stoplight. Guess what happened last night?
Well, not another “everyone is in the car” accident
but our van was hit by an unmanned Ford F-150.
I’d been asleep for over an hour when my husband
came running into the bedroom, turned the light on, and with some serious
urgency exclaimed, “Your van just got hit. It just rolled down the street and hit it.”
It took me just a second to figure out what he meant
but once I did, I threw on some clothes and ran outside, where a man was
standing near his truck with the lights and engine on, the door open, and my
husband asking him for his insurance information.
The man refused and was getting very agitated,
clearly getting ready to flee the scene. I quickly went inside and called the
local sheriff’s office and explained what was happening and gave them the
license plate information.
The man did back his truck up and fled the
neighborhood in a hurry.
Neighbors who had watched from their deck walked
over and explained that they'd seen the truck rolling down the street, but hadn't been able to see the driving running behind/beside it, trying to chase it down. The teenage daughter was able to text the son of the man who had hit
us. The son explained that his father had likely been drinking and was
apologizing when multiple cop cars fled up the street and around the corner to
his home. I suggested he walk (not run) quickly home so he could speak to the
police.
My husband gave a report to one of the officers and
she wrote everything down, took a look at the damage, and then informed us they’d
just found the truck and she’d be back later to update us.
Once the sheriffs cleared out, we sat down at our
kitchen table and I ate a few mini-Twix bars I had purchased last week, just
wanting to wake Dash up and feel that reassurance that we weren't reliving our nightmare. It didn't take long for her to let me know she was still there and enjoying the sugar rush.
The officer came by just before midnight with a
piece of notepad paper and her card with the case number on the back. On the
notepad was the name of the man who had hit us and his driver’s license
information as well as the year, make and model of the truck, license plate
info, the name of the owner, and the
insurance information.
Seeing that insurance information calmed me down
quite a bit; I was very worried when the man drove off that he was uninsured.
At some point I may research a little more, but I
suspect he ran because of an innate fear of the police. Maybe there was a
warrant out for his arrest, he was worried about being caught operating a
vehicle under the influence, maybe he thought the truck was uninsured . . . or
any number of alternatives.
In all honesty, it didn’t even occur to me that the
truck wasn’t his, so the insurance information was amazing to have in our
hands!
Monday was spent making all the necessary insurance
phone calls. It took about 4 hours before the other insurance company admitted liability,
but once they did I knew things would roll along a little better.
Tomorrow morning I’ll take the van in for repairs
and will get a rental. I haven’t turned the van on since the accident occurred,
but I don’t think the damage is really that bad. The bumper took the brunt of
the hit and did its job, crumpling to absorb the impact.
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| Lift gate is damaged and the paint on the interior is peeling off, which make me suspect it's bent more than I can see. |
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| Am I the only who can tell the previous repair company did a poor job of matching the bumper? |
The parallels are uncanny. Between the shirt, the
weather, the museum, visiting family, anatomy scan, and the accident, it was a
very long 5 days!!
And that brings me to today . . . to 19 weeks. My
husband drove me to get the anti-Xa test run yesterday and the results should
be in tomorrow. I am hoping not to
hear from my doctor, meaning that everything is still in range. But if the
nurse does call, she’ll have the new instructions and will be able to call the
new prescription in for the higher dose.
I just hope she doesn't call!
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| How is this maternity shirt supposed to fit someone who is full term? It's stretchy, but not that stretchy! |
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