28 Weeks, 6 Days: J's Misadventures in My Car

The last time I was admitted to the hospital, J was trying to zip home to get cartridges for my brethine pump and the medicine vials for my progesterone injections. Well, he got pulled over. I knew it then. He told me, much to my nurse's dismay. Actually, she got on him big-time for tellling me and stressing me out while they were trying to get my contractions stopped. But I didn't know how bad it was until recently.

He was going 20 miles per hour over the speed limit, on our road, in my car. He was cited for that as well as for not updating his license when we moved back in November. He could have milked the situation. A) The officer had no way of knowing when we moved. My husband volunteered the information. B) He could have told the officer the truth: that his wife was just admitted for preterm labor and he was kind of in a hurry to get my meds from home. It was not a lie. He was distracted and frazzled. Had it been me, there would have been no way I would have gotten a ticket in that situation. J's response? "I didn't think to tell him that!"

I called the courthouse to see what the damage (that I have to pay!) would be: $174 dollars and 6 points on his license. I had to ask the clerk about the points. I have never, ever had any traffic violations so I don't know how that works. Apparently they suspend your license at 12 points. And they gave him a court date: April 29th. I will be toward the end then. I started to have visions of me in the hospital, giving birth to a preemie who may or may not be medically fragile, and them showing up to cart my husband off to jail for failure to appear in court. Ewwww. The ticket says he has to appear, that it is not a "payable offense".

So I am telling the nice lady at the courthouse a little of my situation, and she is kind of laughing at me. My status as a Good Girl means I am completely ignorant of the whole process of getting into trouble. I am hoping she will move his court date either up or back. Instead she tells me that he can bring in proof of his address change on his license, pay $134 instead of $174, and go to traffic school, which will result in no points on his license. And most likely no hike in my already-high insurance premiums. He will be going to traffic school.

I was mad at him for the extra expense he added at a time when we are about as financially crunched as possible without being completely pulverized. But then he showed me. As we were on our way home from my doctor's appointment, he pointed, saying "Look, A! Right there!" There is little road that branches off of ours that only leads to one house. It is at such a sharp angle that you cannot see it until you have passed it coming from the one direction down the hill. Sure enough, I see the black and white nose of a police cruiser poking out from behind some bushes, with a sneaky copper sitting on the hood of the car with his pesky little radar gun, trying to bust people coming down the hill in a 25 mph zone. To go 25 down this hill, you have to literally ride the brakes. Sneaky. So now I cannot be mad at J. I'm lucky it hasn't happened to me yet!