(
)
An incredibly brave Long Island woman who suffered the worst blow that can befall any mother is ready to take a new chance on life.
Jackie Hance, whose three little girls were killed by her drunken sister-in-law driving the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway, is pregnant.
In her first-ever public words since the horrific two-car crash that took eight lives, Hance, 40, disclosed, “Our baby is due in the fall.”
In an emotion-filled article for The Ladies’ Home Journal, she said a terrifying dream of being kept from her daughters “in heaven” led her and her husband, Warren, to try to give them a sibling on Earth.
“I want to be excited, but I know how random life can be, and how unfair,” the Floral Park mom wrote. “However much we try to protect our children, the worst can happen.”
The worst happened on July 26, 2009, when the unthinkable happened — an accident that took the lives of her daughters, Emma, 8, Alyson, 7, and Katie, 5, who were being driven home by their aunt Diane Schuler from an upstate camping trip. Schuler’s two young kids were also in the car.
“When something this terrible happens, your brain simply can’t process it — or at least mine couldn’t,” Hance wrote.
“For weeks after the accident, I’d wake up thinking it was that Sunday again and that the girls were heading home. And every day, my husband or one of my friends would have to tell me the awful news all over again.”
Still, she said, “many people suggested that Warren and I consider having another child.”
“They said having a baby was what the girls would want and it would give us a future. At the time, it wasn’t something I could really take in. Anyway, when Katie was born, I’d had my tubes tied.
“But . . . I slowly began to investigate in-vitro fertilization. We had just paid for three funerals and a beautiful burial plot, so I didn’t know how we could afford the expensive procedure.”
Adding to their financial worries: Relatives of two of the three men who were killed in the other vehicle sued Warren because Schuler had been driving his minivan.
But Jackie Hance said “a friend of a friend” who worked for a Manhattan fertility doctor “heard about my situation.”
The doctor contacted her and offered to do the in-vitro procedure, which involved two rounds of drug injections and egg retrieval.
“The eggs were fertilized and the resulting embryos frozen, although I didn’t really plan to use them,” Hance wrote.
“I wasn’t in a place where I could seriously think about having another child. I’d taken my friends’ advice and followed through on the doctor’s generous offer as if in a trance.”
Several months ago, she and her husband returned to the doctor.
“I’d had a dream that I was standing in heaven and I could see Emma, Alyson and Katie through these big gates. God would not let me inside the gates,” Hance wrote.
“He said that I had been given a gift from a doctor and I had to use this gift before I could be with my babies. So, almost in a daze, I told the doctor I wanted to try to get pregnant, never expecting it to work. I got pregnant the very first time.
“Every day, all I want is to be reunited with my girls again in heaven. But Emma, Alyson, and Katie have other plans for me right now,” she wrote.
In the article, she also recalled details of the worst day of her life.
“Emma . . . called us from the car and said, ‘Something is wrong with Aunt Diane,’ ” Hance wrote. “I heard other children crying in the background and then the phone cut out.
“Warren called back immediately and when he spoke to his sister, she didn’t sound right. He told her not to drive — to pull over right away. We thought she was having a stroke. He got Emma on the phone to describe exactly where they were. I stayed home and called 911; Warren raced off to try to find them. But by then, it was too late.”
Schuler had pulled off a Westchester road and gotten onto the Taconic going the wrong way.
Soon afterward, her red minivan slammed into an oncoming Chevy Trailblazer carrying three Yonkers men.
Everyone in both vehicles was killed — except for Schuler’s 5-year-old son, Bryan.
Days later, after the Hance girls were buried next to Schuler and her daughter, Erin, 2, authorities revealed that Schuler’s blood-alcohol level at the time of the crash was twice the legal limit, and she had also apparently smoked marijuana.
Meanwhile, Hance is still haunted by reminders of her happy past.
“When I was raising three kids, my house was always filled with noise and excitement,” she wrote. “I sometimes thought all I wanted was a moment of silence. Now the silence tortures me.
“I visited many priests and asked why all my girls were taken. ‘They needed to be together,’ I was told over and over again. That just made me angrier,” she wrote. “For my whole life, I always went to church. But after this tragedy I stopped going. How could I believe that God had been listening to my prayers?”
Hance noted that “Warren and I still celebrate the girls’ birthdays, just as we always did. Family, friends, presents, cake — the only things missing are Emma, Alyson, and Katie. We write messages to the guest of honor on balloons and release them into the air, hoping they get to her in heaven.”
She added, “People always ask how I feel about Diane.
“How does a person go from being like a sister to me — adored by my girls and cherished by my husband — to being the one who ruined our lives?
“Since Diane’s not here, I can’t take out my anger, my confusion, or my heartache on her. There’s no one left to hate. And anyway, we both loved her very much.”