My first wreck

Since I have been driving for 16 years now, it was bound to happen at some point in time. I just really didn't expect it like that. I had my first wreck on Monday. I have been rear-ended before, 9 years ago--but it wasn't my fault. So this was my first "my fault" accident. Yikes. First off, let me tell you I was freaked out. I have never been so scared ever. EVER. We were driving to Billings to get some more supplies for our new room downstairs since Ryan and the kiddos had the day off. I was driving. Yup. When I'm pregnant, I tend to get carsick much more often and end up driving a lot. So I was driving, five months pregnant. We had just passed a bad wreck that had slowed traffic almost to a halt, and noticed the road was a lot more icy on that part of the trip. The flow of traffic opened up and everyone was back to the normal highway speed. I was stuck behind someone going 40 and when they slowed down again, I attempted to pass them because I didn't want to slam on my brakes on the icy road. As soon as I started to pass, I hit a patch of black ice and it caught the tire and just took it. I had no steering, no control. So I let off the gas entirely and rode it out. We slid completely off the freeway, through the fence that separated us from the frontage road and across the frontage road and into the ditch by it before I could completely stop. It took a minute to get my bearings, realize that we had finally stopped, that we were where we were and that we weren't dead or seriously hurt. After making sure that everyone was okay, Ryan and I got out of the truck to assess the damage. This is what the fence we went through looked like.


Crazy. Amazingly, the truck was still running and drivable. We were able to drive it out of the ditch and drove down the road to a gas station and called our insurance agent. We washed it today and took it into the body shop to get an estimate. It doesn't look so bad from far away, but we ended up with $10,000 in damage. It'll need a new windshield and a new driver's mirror, new paint on pretty much the whole thing, and there are a few dents and dings all over. So boo to a banged up truck, but gratefulness that it was not worse. It is a miracle that we didn't hit another car and that no one was hurt. On Tuesday I went in to my OB to just check up on the baby, make sure he wasn't too shook up, and he was all good. I'm a little sore from the seatbelt and tensing up muscles so I'll probably go into the chiropractor this week too. I'm gotten a couple more headaches than usual this week, which I'm chalking up to the stress of the wreck, but I think getting adjusted will help. Seriously just grateful that we didn't roll, that no one was hurt and that our insurance will cover a big chunk of the repairs.