My car is a magnet for bad things

Remember 4 months ago when my front end was taken off my car by a hit and run? Well yesterday someone rear ended me while I was in the car. This wasn’t a big deal. The damage was minimum (at least from what the body shop could tell).

See? Just 2 little dots from the license plate holder of the car who hit me.

I guess it was odd that my main priority was the car and not myself. Hello! I’m 29 weeks pregnant. Do you know what happens to pregnant women in car accidents? Something really dramatic to the placenta that causes premature labor, and then an emergency c-section. I did not know this at the time.

Here’s what I did right after the accident:

-I had a trunk full of groceries, so first stop was to put them away at home (which was less than 1/2 mile from my house)
-went to the auto body shop to get the estimate (after all it was my day off, and I figured I should get it over with)
-met my hubby for lunch, it was Chinese. And I hated it. I haven’t eaten Chinese since I got sick in my first trimester, and I still hate it.
-finally went home to “relax”, you know after I switched out the laundry, and did some dishes.

This was about the time I decided to call my aunt to talk to her about how great my labor and delivery class went from the night before. We got to talking about other family stuff, and my upcoming baby shower. Then I jokingly said “oh and by the way I got into a car accident this morning. It’s no big deal, my car was barely dented”. Evidently it’s a HUGE deal. She started listing all the things that could be wrong (I guess she’s a dr…). This cued me to call the advice nurse, which basically lead me to this after about 3 hours of waiting.

This is me in the ER. Even though the advice nurse told me to go to labor and delivery for monitoring, but they made me go to the ER. I guess they have new policies to make the hospital more like an “elite trauma center”. I was in a trauma, therefore I have to go to the ER. Awesome.

I had no physical signs of a trauma, I was wearing my seat belt, and my airbag didn’t deploy. I also had zero cramping or other symptoms, like headache, neck ache, vomiting, dizzy spells, etc. The good ER dr came in and squeezed all my limbs and after about 96 seconds deemed me fit for labor and delivery monitoring. This was about the time hubs showed up. I didn’t feel like he needed to leave work to wait in the ER waiting room with me. So I told him to finish his shift when I went to the hospital, and grab Carlo on the way.

The nurses in labor and delivery were very nice, after I was buzzed in I was immediately shown a room and gowned up and lubed up with monitors.

Right before the nurse left I asked her how long they typically monitor women after something like this. She said, “6 hours”. It was 6 pm, and I told hubs to go get me dinner. I hadn’t eaten since 11am, and I was starving! Hubs checked with the nurse before he left to make sure he could bring food, the nurse told him it would be fine. However she didn’t tell me that I couldn’t consume the food. So when my doctor walked in while I was scarfing my face with a cheeseburger, he was kinda pissed. Mostly because you’re not supposed to eat when you have an emergency c-section. Yes, it was about this time I realized how scared I was about this whole thing. We joked about some stuff, and he told me that since I came in so late, and didn’t see any contractions, I should be fine. He said I only had to be monitored for another hour. I then asked, “can I finish my burger?” He lectured me about eating foods from drive-thrus. I brought up chipotle, and he wasn’t impressed. He never answered my question, and when I wasn’t looking hubs threw away the rest (most) of my burger.

The hour passed, I watched some Hd-less TV (didn’t realize how important hd is until I had to watch 2 hours of TV with out it), and I googled lots of things like “getting in a car accident while pregnant”, and “low blood pressure while pregnant”. (I know I shouldn’t google things like that while lying in a hospital bed, but whatever)The machine kept going off because my blood pressure was low. Like below 90/60 the entire time. The last time it was 88/55, the only thing the nurse and doctor said was, “wow you have low blood pressure”. I guess it wasn’t something to get worried about, because they didn’t follow up with anything else. I think if I start having fainting spells or something, then they will do something more than just comment on it?

Anyways all is fine, I was sent home and I hope I don’t have to go back to the hospital for at least 11 weeks. I was also worried they would put me on some sort of bed rest or something, but nope I get to go back to work on Sunday. At this point we are pinching all our pennies for my maternity leave. I’m hoping I save up enough to take a full 3 months.

When you’re in a car accident while you’re pregnant, you should go to the hospital first! Not the auto body shop. And eat something! You may not be able to eat for awhile once you get to the hospital. And don’t eat a burger in front of your doctor…

Cheers!