One Little Girl - Part 2: You can't get rid of me that easily AKA The scariest thing that's ever happened to me

"You can't get rid of me that easily!" is a phrase that Tim has said to me many times over the course of our relationship, usually when I am lamenting something irritating I've done that could potentially drive him away. I have heard it in response to serving dinosaur chicken nuggets for dinner, and for crying about, well, nothing. "You're stuck with me!" is commonly said along with it.

This weekend while celebrating our 5th anniversary, I got the chance to use this phrase on Tim. We were talking about the ups and downs of the seven years that we've been together, and began discussing the car accident we were in a mere 3 weeks after we were married. I was asking Tim what he remembered from the wreck and he said he remembered coming to and looking out the window. He saw me lying on the ground and thought that I was dead. To this I responded, "You can't get rid of me that easily!" I thought it was clever.

When Tim wrecks a car, he WRECKS a car. Here's some pictures from the accident:

Yeah, a bit more than a fender bender, huh? But, you can't get rid of me that easily. Here's what happened.

So, like I mentioned in the previous post, Tim and I decided that we wanted to get married and keep our little girl, start a family a bit earlier than we had originally planned. We were married on June 28th, 2008. After the wedding, Tim lived with his parents in Overland Park and I moved into our new place in Lawrence, a 2 bedroom townhome. I was working for a summer camp in Lawrence and Tim was working in Overland Park so the plan was that he would live with his parents during the week and then come and live with me on the weekends. Fun way to start a marriage, huh? :)

So that's what we did. One evening I decided to drive out to Overland Park to meet Tim for dinner at Mi Ranchito. It was a very hot, Kansas July day. Tim was working at Budweiser at the time, and had spent the day unloading booze from trucks in the heat. I dropped my car off at my in laws' house and Tim drove us to the restaurant. We ate, got caught up and got into his car to head back to his parents house.

My heart is pounding just thinking about what happened next.

I don't really remember what we were talking about, but we were heading south on Quivira and were almost back to the house when Tim said, "I don't feel good." I was looking out my window when he said this, and responded with, "Well, do you think we should pull over?" He didn't respond and so I turned to look at him, and he was completely unconscious in the driver's seat, his foot heavy on the accelerator.

I began screaming at him to wake up. We were coming up to a stop light, with a red light, and cars were lined up in front of us. I didn't know what to do. His Mustang was a manual and I had no idea where the emergency brake was or how to engage it. I continued screaming and tried to pry his leg off the gas pedal. The cars parked at the stop light were rapidly approaching. We were running out of time. I was panicking. I grabbed the wheel, and sharply turned to the right.

And that's the last thing I remember.

We hit a tree and then hit a giant stone pillar. The details of exactly what happened with the car are a little fuzzy,  but the passenger side door was torn off, and despite wearing my seat belt, I was thrown from the car and landed on a patch of grass between the sidewalk and the street.

When Tim came to, the first thing he saw was my unconscious body laying there in the grass. Like I mentioned earlier, he thought I was dead. He thought that he killed his brand new wife and unborn child. His door was jammed shut and he was stuck in the car, screaming and trying to get to me. People began to flood the scene and quickly rushed over to him, telling him not to move or he might hurt himself. He shouted to the bystanders that I was pregnant. They turned me off of my stomach and told him that I was alive. Someone called his parents and they quickly arrived on the scene, and called my parents as well. My dad remembers asking my mother-in-law if we were okay, and her telling him that there was a lot of blood. An ambulance came and Kathy rode with me to the hospital. Another came and took Tim.

My dad met me at the hospital. I was beginning to come to. I distinctly remember looking down on my body from somewhere above and wondering where I was. I felt like I was waking from a dream. Bits and pieces of what had happened came back to me, but I felt detached and everything seemed fuzzy. I remember first asking my dad where my mom was. It turns out he couldn't get a hold of her. She was out somewhere and not picking up her cell. He continued calling and left messages on their home phone for her to call right away. The next question I asked my dad was if Tim was dead. I recall asking it in a matter-of-fact way, devoid of emotion, the way someone would ask if it was supposed to rain today.

What happened next was a blur. Tests were ran to see if Tim and I were okay- and to see why he passed out at the wheel. The answer to that question would not come for a while and would not be clear cut. He had no external injuries. I too, came away mostly unscathed. I had a concussion that would leave me with headaches and nausea for a few weeks, and many cuts on the right side of my body that would eventually scar. No broken bones, miraculously.  I remember my friend Kayla combing grass and sticks out of my hair. A few weeks after the accident, I found a piece of glass embedded in my scalp, and picked it out with my fingernail. They did several sonograms after the wreck and through the duration of my pregnancy and were convinced that the baby was fine too. I think we were all a little nervous about her until we were able to see for ourselves, when she was born, that she was okay.

A few days later, we were released from the hospital. Tim and I spent the rest of the summer moving back and forth between our parents' homes, resting and recuperating. The summer Olympics were going on, so that provided some entertainment. Tim was not supposed to drive until they figured out what made him pass out, and I was supposed to take a month off to heal from the concussion. Tim went back to working at Budweiser, in the warehouse, after a couple of weeks. I celebrated my 22nd birthday at my mom's house, with a pinata hanging in their tree. Some way to begin a marriage, huh? In August, we moved back to Lawrence and for the first time, lived together as a married couple. We couldn't wait to get out on our own again, to get back to school, something that we knew and understood. We had about three months to go before our little girl would arrive.

For a while after the wreck, I was apprehensive about driving. I occasionally had flash backs. I was especially nervous the first time I got into the car with Tim behind the wheel again. They said that he had neurocardiogenic syncope and for a while, he was on medication. The doctor felt that it was better for him not to be on it long term, so he eventually came off of it and was told that  eating lots of salt and drinking lots of water would help. Basically, blood would pool in his legs and leave him light headed. We've figured out more about his "condition" now, but that's a story for another day.

My right arm has some scars that I think will stay with me forever. I've got a nice one across my left foot. It was a few days before I saw that particular injury because they kept socks on me in the hospital. I remember seeing it for the first time and thinking it looked kind of bad ass. It may sound crazy, but I am thankful for them. I see the scars on my skin as a reminder of what could have happened. I could have lost my life, my baby's life, or both. All three of us could have easily died that day. Take one more look at the pictures of the car. Three people walked out of that situation virtually unharmed.

When they see the pictures, people usually tell us how lucky we are. But simple dumb luck could not save us from something like that. Just look at the picture and tell me how a pregnant woman could be thrown from that car and walk away unharmed. The car was going 45 miles per hour. Surviving that kind of this is beyond luck. Luck is coming home from the casino with more money than you took with you, or finding a $5 bill on the street. What happened to us was way more powerful and significant than that.

I really believe that God saved us from that accident for a reason. Why did the accident even have to happen? I don't know. Maybe so I would wake up and realize how precious life is, yet how delicate it is. The value of what it means to breath in and out for one more day. I don't know what is going to happen to me through the course of my life, I don't know how many more years or days I have left. But I just know and feel in my heart that God has a plan for me, for us, and that is the only reason that we are still here. I am here to do something great with the time I have left. My life was spared because I am not finished yet. No. My heart is still beating. Blood is pumping. I am alive.

You can't get rid of me that easily.

One little girl - Part 1: My life is over

It is amazing the impact that one little girl can have on the world. A little over five years ago, one little girl rocked my world and turned it completely upside down. One little girl ruined my old life, and in the ruins, planted a tiny little seed that would grow into a completely new, ultra meaningful, challenging, yet amazing new life.

Meet Lexi, the little girl I speak of:

Tim and I often joke that Lexi wished herself into existence. It's true, she is what some people call a surprise, others call an accident or problem, others an oopsie baby. However you like to put it, Lexi was not planned, at least not by Tim and I. God totally had her planned for a reason though, and I think that, despite my reaction when I first discovered her existence, she was one of His very best ideas.

Her story might take a while to tell, but here goes...

Tim and I were students at KU at the beginning of her story, and we had been dating for about two years. We actually met our junior year of high school, on a field trip to the Truman Library (of all places) and became good friends our senior year. I had a major crush on him, but told know one. I mean just look at this face...and hair. How could you not love hair like this?

And this?

So to make a long story short, we both finished high school dating other people. I became single, but he was dating a friend of mine, so I figured there was no way he would ever be mine. Well, it turns out I was wrong. It didn't work out with her (for either of us, to tell the truth), and Tim and I began dating the summer after our freshman year of college. I lived with my parents and went to JCCC and he lived in an apartment in Lawrence. Every weekend, I would make the drive to visit and we would hang out, visit Pet World to look at the snakes, eat Reese's Puffs and ramen noodles, and act like young people in love. I could hardly wait to rush out of work on Friday nights to begin the 40 minute drive to Lawrence, to my super hot boyfriend and his apartment, a kinda gross place he shared with three other guys. In the fall of 2007, I moved to Lawrence, entered the School of Education, and moved into my own apartment with a friend.

Fast forward to spring 2008. I was taking 20 hours that semester (because I was crazy) and working part time at an elementary school, a job that I LOVED. I was in the midst of midterms when I realized my period was late. I was a little worried, but not too worried, because I was pretty stressed out between midterms and my job. Spring break came and Tim and his family took a trip to Jamaica, while my mom and I went to Florida together. My period still didn't come and I was beginning to get nervous. My mom and I went to Epcot and my stomach was hurting. I chalked it up to the weird French food I had, but I think deep down I already knew. I remember boarding a ride that said "Not recommended for pregnant women" and noticing that sign...and feeling weird about it. I remember having a drink poolside and wondering what kind of a choice that was. In general, I wasn't feeling great on the trip and my mom noticed and asked what was up. I spilled the beans the morning we went to Sea World. Some of you may not have moms that you can talk to about potential crises, but luckily, I did and still do.

I told her the situation, told her I was...late...and she assured me that it was probably just stress and nothing to worry about, but that I should take a test if my period didn't still come in a few days. For peace of mind. After all, I had missed a period once before due to stress. That's probably what was going on.

So, we finished our trip and I returned to Lawrence. A few days later, Tim got back from his trip too. He found out that his grandma was in the hospital and not doing well. It was a stressful time. But I told him about my problem. I wanted to take a test. He too thought it was probably time. I don't remember the details of getting the test, but a test was purchased and all I needed to do was pee on it. I asked him if he thought I was pregnant and his (oh-so encouraging) response was "Probably." Geez.

If you've never done it before, taking a pregnancy test when you really, really don't want to be pregnant is really, really nerve wracking. My legs were shaking and I was totally terrified. He was right there with me, ready to wait. And there in the bathroom of his apartment, a plus sign showed up faster than I ever thought possible. We didn't even have to wait the two minutes. There it was, clear as day. Holy. Shit. I was pregnant.

I was a 21-year-old straight A college student who had just moved out of my parents' house a mere seven months earlier, and I was pregnant. At the time, I felt like my worst nightmare had come true. I cried for days. I would almost fall asleep and then a little voice inside me would remember and whisper, "you're pregnant" and I would wake up crying again. I felt like my life was over. That nothing would ever be the same, nothing would ever, could ever, be good, ever again. I had failed. I was so stupid and I made the biggest mistake and now I was going to pay. I could not believe that something like this could happen to someone like me. I was a goody two shoes all through high school, a real nerd who did craft kits from Walmart, played Karaoke Revolution in my basement, and never drank or did drugs or cut class. I was a member of NHS and I worked at a retirement home (and loved it) and then at an elementary school. I was a nice girl. A good girl. How could this happen? What was I going to do?

In reality, just like I thought, my old life was over. I didn't know it at the time, but a brand new life, more amazing than I could ever imagine, was just about to begin.

What was I going to do? I kept asking myself. Tim and I talked and talked about it. How could we fix this and get things back to normal? How could we ever make things right? What were we going to do? How could we tell our parents? Oh, God, our parents! How on earth could I look my parents, let alone Tim's parents, in the eye and tell them that I was pregnant? The thought of it made me want to run screaming (or puking) in the other direction.

Not long after we found out the news, Tim's grandma Mary passed away. It was a slow and sad ending to a beautiful life lived. Before she died, Tim whispered our secret to her. She was in and out (mostly out) of consciousness during those last few days, so we aren't sure if she actually heard it or not, but I like to think that she did and that she took it with her. Her funeral was really emotional. I remember crying a lot, and I am sure many people thought it was out of grief. I guess in a way it was, but maybe not for her. Maybe grief for the ending of my old life. At one point, her many grandchildren each placed a flower on her casket. I was struck by that moment. Mary and her husband Ron had 7 children. The woman was the matriarch of this big, beautiful family. I remember watching the grandkids return to their seats, hugging their moms and dads, her children, and thinking...this could be me some day. I could be the mother of a family like this. Was this the beginning?

Tim and I finally decided to break the news to my parents. We went to their house and had dinner and were hanging around afterward, hearts pounding and palms sweating. I went downstairs to their finished basement and was sitting at the computer alongside my mom when she casually said, "Oh, I've been meaning to ask you. Did you get your period?" It was just the two of us down there. I looked up at her and she instantly knew. "Oh my God, you are? We have to tell your Dad!" Of course that was the last thing I (and particularly, Tim) wanted to do. But she couldn't keep it from him, so the three of us went upstairs together and called my Dad into the room. I think my mom prefaced it with something like, "The kids have something to tell you..." and I blurted out, "I'm pregnant!" and immediately started crying.

Some people say the devil is in the details, but God was totally in the details of this part of the story. My dad didn't yell, he didn't cry, he didn't punch Tim in the face (hey, it could happen!). Instead, he said, "Hey, this is a good thing! Don't cry, it's going to be okay!" I cannot express in words how much his kind, gentle response that day meant to me. I was so terrified, so ashamed, but he responded with love and kindness and acceptance and that meant, and still means, the world to me. A little bit of hope bloomed in me and part of me started to believe that maybe things would be okay, somehow, someday.

Next, we told Tim's parents (which was probably even scarier than telling my parents) and again, we were met with nothing but love and support. Tim and I were so blessed (not lucky) that as unmarried 21-year-olds with an unplanned pregnancy on our hands, we were surrounded by love and support on all sides. I don't think most people in that sort of situation are able to say that.

With hard part step 1: tell the parents complete, it was time to address our growing problem. What were we going to do? Well, when someone gets pregnant, there are usually three options- have the baby and keep it, have the baby and give it up for adoption, or abort the baby. For a while, a big, terrified part of me wished the baby would just choose option 4: magically disappear on her own, but that was not the case, not God's plan. Tim and I were not comfortable with abortion, so that option was out. We were left to decide whether we should keep the baby or give the baby up for adoption.

You may not know this, but I myself am adopted. So when I first discovered my little problem, I was actually leaning heavily toward adoption. Maybe it was the right choice. How could two college students raise a baby? Was that even fair to the baby? Adoption was the selfless choice. The baby would get a home with a loving family and we could all move on with our lives. It made sense.

But the problem with that choice was that we couldn't. We couldn't just all move on with our lives. Tim and I talked a lot about this. Could we really just have a baby, give it up for adoption, and then go back to being college students like nothing had ever happened? I remember my brother telling me there was no way we could do that, no way I could give up a baby and just move on. Could Tim and I handle that? Would our relationship be able to withstand having a baby, giving it away, and staying together? So what, after that would we just keep living in our apartments? Go out to the movies like a normal young couple? Finish school and get married some day and then have babies...when we were ready? So what would we tell our future kids? Well, you have a sibling out there somewhere. We gave her away because we weren't ready for her. But we love you! We were ready for you!

Yeah, somehow, we knew that wasn't going to work. It would never be that easy. We knew that something as heavy as giving up a baby, our baby, would eat us alive, completely pull us apart. And we knew that we didn't want that. We loved each other. A lot. Even back in the high school days, I knew. I remember driving home from Tim's parents' house one night at 3am thinking, "I think I could marry Tim. I think we would be really good together." We loved each other enough that we weren't willing to give up on our relationship, on one another. So we decided to get married, and keep the baby.

And four months later, that is exactly what we did.

Shortly before the wedding, we found out we were having a girl. One little girl. We were 21, we were married, and we were going to be parents. I never would have, in my wildest dreams, ever thought that I would be the girl who got pregnant out of wedlock, and then got married crazy young. But, I was and I did.

Part 1 of God's big plan, commenced...

There's a plan.

Never lucky, always blessed. What does that mean? It means that I believe that all the things that have happened and will happen in my life are not just random chance, luck or lack thereof, rather, I believe that God has blessed and continues to bless my life.

Do I always understand what He is doing? Absolutely not. I have asked WHY about so many things that have happened in my life. Usually, I ask why while I'm in the thick of things. Usually, when I get a little distance (mainly time) from a situation, I can figure sort of figure out why it happened to me, or how something can make me a better person even if it seemed, well, crappy at the time.

Example: Why did Tim lose his job at Farmers? It seemed horrible at the time since he was the breadwinner. We both freaked out, it happened so fast. On Monday he came home and said they might be re-configuring his department, and on Friday, I heard the garage door opening a good 2 hours before he was due home, and there he was, with a box of his stuff. Just like that. No severance, no nothing. I was so mad at that stupid company for letting him go. Didn't they realize he had two little ones at home depending on him? He worked his ass off, didn't they notice? It really seemed like a shitty situation.What the heck were we going to do?

Now that I am on the other side of it, I can see the good, the growth that came out of it. Three days after he was laid off, I had a job offer from church in pretty much a dream position. It was part time, so it would pay about half of what Tim made, but that would at least slow down the rapid consumption of our savings while we waited for him to find something new. I worked a couple days per week and Tim hunted for jobs and took care of the kids while I was gone. I got a taste of what it would be like to be a working mom...and discovered that I didn't really like it. Too distracting, too much begging people to do their share. We got to spend a lot of time together during the three months that Tim was home. We enjoyed each other's company, the girls loved having Dad home. I loved the flexibility of having an extra set of hands around the house. And then he found a new job with a better company, and hours that allow us both to exercise like we want to, get up early, get moving and start our days off on the right foot. A hidden blessing.

The loss of his old job caused me to take a closer look at our finances, to put away our credit cards and form a budget, to stop spending more than we were making and begin saving for retirement and giving to church, a little at a time. Good ol' Dave Ramsey guided us to start making our money behave. Thank God we learned this now instead of 5 years from now. Would we even have made it 5 years? Would we have had any savings left at that point?

All the extra time gave me the chance to do some soul searching and discernment. I'd been begging God to reveal His plan to me, and I kind of meant that I wanted to know exactly what He had in store for me...y'know, for the next 20 years or so. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? I finally realized that. I realized that I am not going to know what the rest of my life is going to look like. To try and figure that out would really just drive me crazy, make me frustrated. What I did figure out is that I just need to know what I am being called to do today, right now. And once I narrowed the scope of my searching, I discovered that God is calling me home right now, with my kids and my family. Nothing super heroic, no official job title or money coming in, not working at church. Just home. With my girls. Teaching them to be good people, and conquering laundry and dishes in the process. It doesn't seem like much, but I take this calling seriously. Think about it. What if every parent did? What if every mother or father realized that they are raising a human (or multiple humans) and affecting the future of the world? I feel like they might be a little more careful with what they say and do. Might think things through a little more. What kind of an impact would that have on society? But that's a topic for a different day.

Our time with Tim home made us realize that we need to be more careful with our money, our time, and what we do. Our lives are precious. Anything can happen at any time. You can get a phone call one day that your Dad has cancer, or that your Grandma is breathing her final breaths. Tim losing his job gave us the gift of time, which made us realize how valuable time really is.

God had (and still has) a plan. Tim's back at his new job, and I am slowing things down. I'm cutting back on excess and enjoy the little moments with my little people before they become big people. If it weren't for Tim losing his job, we'd still all be on autopilot. Sometimes God has to shake things up, really mess them around, before we stop to think, take a closer look at our lives, and fully rely on Him. I am grateful for the opportunity.