God's hand in all things!

Amy and I were looking retrospectively at the events of the weekend today and we realized just how lucky we are. God truly had his hand in our lives ... protecting us from something so much worse.

First off for those of you who are interested I will give you a first hand account of the accident. Our new house is about 1/4 North of the major highway (HWY 26) to Jackson Hole. Our old house that we rented is on the same street just about 1/2 mile on the same street on the south side of the highway.

I was working out at the house on saturday and Amy was going to bring me dinner at 6 pm. At about 5:45 pm I realized that I needed a drill bit from the Shop that we still rent at our old house. So I got in the truck and headed down to the shop. I got to the stop sign at the highway and there was tons of traffic both directions. It is a very busy road and is only 1 lane each direction with no turn lanes. The speed limit on the highway is 65mph. As I waited to cross I saw Amy coming up the highway bring me dinner. She started to slow down so that she could turn left. There were about 5 or 6 cars behind her. Finally it was almost clear for her to turn when I looked to the right and saw that an old brown car had come up on the 5 or 6 slowing cars and had decided to not slow but to pass them all. Knowing that Amy was going to turn left I frantically began waving my arms at her trying to get her attention and motion for her not to turn ... because she would be hit by the car trying to pass. Amy looked at me in confusion and slowly proceded to turn left ... she had no idea that a car was approaching her from behind doing between 60 and 70 MPH.

Her suburban was at about a 45 degree angle to the highway when the old brown car realized that she was turning left and tried to swerve around her to not hit her. She could not make it and the front right side of the brown car clipped the front left side of Amy's suburban. Amy's suburban just deflected the brown car into a spin and her suburban stayed put.

I jumped out of my truck and ran to my family dialing 911 at the same time. The suburban did not look too bad and neither Amy or the two kids were visibly injured. The air bags did not deploy. Amy immediately began complaining of excruciating back pain and severe contractions. An off duty firefighter stopped and rushed over. Then immediately someone said a doctor had stopped and came over. When i looked over from Amy I realized who that Doctor was ... it was Amy's very own OB / GYN. Amy said that she hadn't felt the baby move since the accident. He looked at her and immeditaly said she needed to be taken to the hospital and checked out. The ambulance arrived and were were wisked away. I left the kids witha neighbor that lived on the corner.

They took us directly to the Labor and Delivery ward at the hospital where they hooked Amy up to monitors, did a complete ultrasound workover and gave her drugs to stop the contractions. They drew blood for some tests and then thinking that they had everything under control sent Amy to the ER to have her back and neck checked out for injuries. While we were in the ER the Labor and Delivery Nurse came back and told us that the Baby's blood was mixing with Amy's and that we were going to have to spend the night in Lasbor and Delivery. Amy's doctor stopped by agauin the next morning at 6 AM on his way to church meetiongs (he is a stake president) and said she needed 3 shots of Rogam to offset the baby's blood. He also ordered another blood work up to see if the baby was still bleeding iinto Amy. At about 10 am on sunday morning the nurse came in and said things were looking better and that the original test showed 1.1% of baby blood mixed, while the second only showed 1.4%. She said things would probably stabalize but the Doctor would be in at 11 AM to make the final decision.

The doctor showed at 11:45 am and said that even though the baby monitor showed no signs of distress there had to be a problem in order for the baby to be bleeding out into Amy. He said we needed an immediate c-section. I had no time to get anyone to the hospital so he helped me adminster to Amy. We were dressed in scrubs and taken right into the OR. At 12:31 PM they started the c-section, Katanya was born at 12:35 pm and immediatley whisked off to the NICU. By 12:52 Amy was all stitched up and back in the recovery room. We did not even see the baby for about 2 more hours.

This evening Amy's doctor came in and told us the final blood mix count ... 3.4%. He said that had we waited any longer we would have been in a crash cart situation. We had made the right decision in taking the baby when we did.

As Amy and I talked over the terror of the weekend and the tragedy we realized how the lord had watched over us. Had I not been at that intersection to slow Amy's turn she would have been t-boned at 70 mph. Which would have caused severe injury to Amy, Cruz and the baby. As it was the car was barely deflected of the suburban. What was the likelihood of Amy's very own Doctor driving just 2 cars behind her? We are so greatful for the blessing we recieved. While we are not happy to have a baby in the ICU, we feel blessed that none of our other children were hurt nor was the baby killed.

We are so greatful to all those who have helped out, prayed and fasted on our behalf and expressed desires to help in any way that they can. Thank you all so much.

Amy is doing well and is recovering nicely. She is very apprehensive about having to leave the hospital without her baby. She feels awful not be able to take care of Katanya as a normal delivery would allow. But she is doing all she can. She stays by Katanya's side as much as she can.

Katanya is doing as good as can be expected. She is down to 3 lbs 15 oz but they say that is normal. She has a ventilator, 2 IV's and an umbilical IV thingy. She is seddated and is in stable conditon. They say she will be in the NICU for about 2 months ...Amy is praying for a miracle and is hoping for 1 month. I will keep you updated as the days go by.

Once again thanks for all your prayers ...they are felt and appreciated.