A new mom in Michigan experienced both joy and horror on Saturday after she learned her mother and her fiancé had been killed in a car crash while they were racing to the hospital for the birth of her son.
Crystal Matrau-Belt, 24, unexpectedly delivered her son, Jeremiah, after going to the doctor's office for a checkup on Friday, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported.
The doctor told Matrau-Belt that she had high blood pressure, and decided to induce labor.
She told the newspaper that after hours of labor on Saturday, she called her fiancé, Emil Skokan III, and told him to come to the hospital.
"I got a text from [Emil], 'Do you want me to bring up anything?' and just said I'll meet you up there and that he loved me," Matrau-Belt told the Kalmazoo Gazette.
Skokan decided to pick up his fiancé's mother, Peggy Nichols, since she lived on the way.
But on the way to the hospital, the 34-year-old lost control of his car and crashed into a tree. Skokan and Nichols, 53, both died.
Authorities told the Kalamazoo Gazette that it appears speed was a factor in the crash.
Matrau-Belt told the newspaper that it is clear that her fiancé and mom wanted to be there as soon as they could.
"They didn't know what was going on, and a lot of medical stuff was happening," she said. "Their main focus was being able to be here because I didn't want them to miss anything. They just wanted to be there for me."
The new mom said she began asking where her mom and fiancé were after they never showed up, but no one told her because she was about to have a C-section. After Jeremiah was born, her stepfather broke the news.
"I just all of a sudden had a sinking feeling something was wrong," she told the newspaper. "I just didn't know that it was my fiancé and my mom."
Matrau-Belt told the Kalamazoo Gazette that both her mom and fiancé were incredibly excited for Jeremiah to enter the world, and doing this without them is the hardest thing she has ever experienced.
"I loved my mom and I loved Emil with all my heart," she said. "Once I leave here I don't really know what to do with myself, my whole life, you know?"