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KALAMAZOO, MI -- Three hours after she had her son, Crystal Matrau-Belt still hadn't seen her fiance or her mother in the sea of other family members who had come to meet the new baby.

"I asked my stepdad, 'Do you know where Emil is?'" Matrau-Belt recalled. "My dad said, 'Honey, that's what we need to talk to you about.' I just all of a sudden had a sinking feeling something was wrong. I just didn't know that it was my fiance and my mom."

Emil Skokan III, Matrau-Belt's fiance, had been driving himself and Matrau-Belt's mother, Peggy Nichols, to the hospital for the birth of his son just before 4 p.m. Saturday, when he lost control of the car on a stretch of South 26th Street near Cork Street in Comstock Township. The car hit a tree, killing Skokan, 34, and Nichols, 53.

"Losing two of the most important people in my life at the same time as bringing a child into the world, it's like happy and the most heartbreaking thing," Matrau-Belt said in an interview Monday at Bronson Methodist Hospital. "I waited so long to be able to have a child, and to have a child but then have two things ripped out of my life, it's just really hard to deal with and even process."

Unexpected delivery

Jeremiah came into the world a bit unexpectedly. Matrau-Belt, 24, had gone to her doctor for a checkup Friday afternoon, but because of her high blood pressure and because she was already 39 weeks along, her doctor decided it was time to send her to the labor and delivery unit to be induced.

Matrau-Belt was still in labor Saturday and got an epidural. Not long after, she had a bit of a scare when her blood pressure dropped and she blacked out. She was stabilized, but her labor wasn't progressing and she didn't want to put the baby at any more stress, so she opted for a C-section.

Shortly after she had the scare, she contacted her fiance and told him to head to the hospital. Peggy Nichols happened to be on the way to Matrau-Belt's house and then planned to head to the hospital, so she and Skokan rode together.

"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," Crystal said.

That was the last time she heard from her fiance.

Once she decided to go for the C-section she again tried to contact Skokan, but couldn't reach him. That in and of itself wasn't unsusual, but Matrau-Belt said she felt something was amiss.

"They had brought my stepdad out of the room, but no one told me anything," Matrau-Belt said. "I couldn't get a hold of them. Instead of stressing me out, they just really wanted me to go and get the C-section done."

Matrau-Belt's stepmother stayed with her during the delivery. While she was in recovery, other family members came to visit. Once she was out of recovery, her aunt took Jeremiah out of the room and Matrau-Belt questioned where her fiance and mother were.

Matrau-Belt and Skokan had spent her whole pregnancy disagreeing on the name for their son. On Friday, when it was evident the baby was coming sooner rather than later, she suggested Jeremiah.

"We actually for the first time decided on a name together," Matrau-Belt said, pausing to wipe away tears.

Matrau-Belt and Skokan decided Jeremiah's middle name would be James, after her stepfather's middle name.

Matrau-Belt, a Kalamazoo native, and Skokan, a Parchment native, had plans for their future together. They wanted to move out of their home in Pavilion Estates.

"He had told me a few months back that he wanted to get married, but he wanted to make sure I was ready, so we could all have the same last name," Matrau-Belt said. She stopped, sobbing.

"He wanted to step up and make sure he was a good father to him," Matrau-Belt said.

Matrau-Belt described her fiance as "caring, hard-working, really smart." He would have celebrated his 35th birthday Sunday. He loved tinkering with his fish tank and their 20-plus fish. Along with Jeremiah, Skokan is survived by two other sons, Emil Skokan IV and Kayden Skokan, according to his obituary.

Matrau-Belt said Skokan spent all night Friday cleaning the house for the baby and setting up his bassinet.

"He was so excited and was trying to do everything right," Matrau-Belt said.

Skokan was handy around the house and had been helping Matrau-Belt's mother and stepfather work on their house, which had caught fire in February 2015.

"He loved helping my mom," Matrau-Belt said. "He loved my mom."

'Never seen her so happy'

Matrau-Belt said the feeling was mutual from her mother, who treated Emil like he was her own son.

Matrau-Belt said her mother had been excited to meet her first biological grandchild, and once they found out Matrau-Belt was having a boy, her mother bought "his entire wardrobe," a car seat and a stroller. Matrau-Belt said it was a big deal for her mother, who knew Matrau-Belt had struggled with infertility and miscarriages in the past.

"I've never seen her so happy," Matrau-Belt said. Her words dissolved into tears as her uncle, Michael Myers, hugged her.

She could not wait for him to be here," Matrau-Belt said. "She had big plans to take him to the zoo, to Disney World."

Matrau-Belt called Nichols "the most caring person I've ever met." Nichols and her husband were living with Matrau-Belt's grandmother while they were fixing up their fire-damaged house. Matrau-Belt said her stepfather was injured in that fire, and her mother went back into the fire to save him.

"I thought I was losing my parents then," Matrau-Belt said.

Speed a factor

Authorities have said speed was a factor in Saturday's crash that killed Skokan and Nichols.

"They were trying to get here," Matrau-Belt said. "They didn't know what was going on, and a lot of medical stuff was happening. 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," Matrau-Belt said, weeping.

Jeremiah has his mother's lips, but his facial features and mannerisms already mirror his father's, especially when he furrows his brow when he doesn't like something, Matrau-Belt said.

Matrau-Belt said she thinks he'll have curly, dirty blond hair like Skokan's, who spent four years growing out his hair to shoulder-length curls.

"I go to pick him up and I see Emil in him," Matrau-Belt said. "It's hard, but just to know that I have a piece of Emil, that helps a little bit.

"I want to celebrate him being born, but losing my fiance who I loved so much, and my mom at the same time, it's a really big struggle to try to balance all of that," Matrau-Belt said. "I go from grief for one person and I'm crying hysterically and just upset, and then I'm OK, and then it flips to the other person and then it's back and forth because both of them were so important in my life. To lose them both at a time like this, it's really hard."

Family members have taken turns staying with Matrau-Belt and Jeremiah at the hospital, and Matrau-Belt said she has had support from them.

Funeral arrangements set

When Matrau-Belt and her newborn are discharged from the hospital Tuesday, she will have to face the difficulty of burying the man she was going to marry and her own mother. Skokan's funeral will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 16, at Langeland Family Funeral Homes, Memorial Chappel, 622 S. Burdick St.

Nichols' family will greet friends from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 17 at Langeland Family Funeral Homes, Westside Chapel, 3926 S. 9th St. Her funeral will be at 11 a.m. Friday, Dec. 18, and interment will follow at Mt. Ever-Rest Memorial Park South.

Soon, Matrau-Belt will celebrate Jeremiah's first Christmas without those loved ones. Nichols wanted to make sure his first Christmas would be celebrated at her house, so Skokan and Matrau-Belt's uncle, Myers, had been helping them finish repairing the house so they could have it ready by the holidays.

"Things like this just don't happen. The last thing I got from Emil was 'I love you babe and I'll be up there soon.' I loved my mom and I loved Emil with all my heart. Once I leave here I don't really know what to do with myself, my whole life, you know?"

Emily Monacelli is a reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Contact her at emonacel@mlive.com or follow her on Twitter.