About 5 months after Jeff and I got married, we found out that we were expecting, again! Wait, rewind.... so 3 1/2 months after we got married, Jeff and I found out we were expecting. Only a week or so later however, I miscarried. I had been spotting most of the weekend, but was hoping that everything was fine, then Monday morning, went in to work, and had to leave shortly thereafter to go to the hospital because I was miscarrying. It was sad, but the natural process of God's will. Imagine our surprise when only 4 weeks later we found out we were pregnant again (which was a little unanticipated after so recent a miscarriage). We saw Zac for the first time as a little peanut on the screen in April, with a tiny flicker of gray where his heart was beating away. After all the tumultuous events of the past couple months, we were amazed and awed that there was a tiny little person growing inside me.
The pregnancy went pretty smoothly through the summer and into the fall. I never felt very sick, but constantly craved fruit smoothies and anything potato (must have been the Idaho girl in me coming out!).
During the summer we found out that we were expecting a baby boy, which floored me just a little (even though Daddy gave it the two-thumbs up signal when he found out). Just let me explain a little, my family had a little tradition of having all girls first. My maternal grandma - 2 girls, my mother - a girl first, my sister - a girl first, my 3 maternal cousins - yep, all girls first! So even though I knew it was not dependent on anything that I contributed, and more dependent on my husband, I was still a little shocked to find out that a baby boy was coming our way first. Because of my silly assumption, we hadn't really been considering any boy names, I had no favorites, and had no inklings of what this little boy should be called. We actually assembled a list of names that we thought were ok, and had family and friends vote on which name they liked best.
One night, I had one of my crazy pregnancy dreams, and what I remember of it was this: I was leaning over the bed of my pregnant husband, who was just delivering a girl baby, and he named it Amber. Then I look over and another woman (who I don't remember recongnizing) had a baby and her name was Amber. As my subconscious realized that this was just too weird, so I began to wake up, and as I did the name Zachary popped into my head. I woke up, asked Jeff what he thought, to which he sleepily mumbled that it sounded great, then I quickly went back to sleep. Luckily I woke up and remembered all of it, and Zachary became our favorite name.A couple weeks before my due date my ankles began to swell, to the point that I actually had 'cankles'! I remember laying down on my bed with my feet up on the wall to try and get the fluid to flow back into my body (it didn't work!).
November 10, 2006 came, Jeff's 23rd birthday, and my last day at work. I went to my prenatal appointment that afternoon, where they saw my swelling, and then took my blood pressure. It was elevated, and from there I was sent to the hospital for a non-stress test. I sat in the triage area for a few hours while they monitored both my blood pressure and the baby's heartbeat. Zac was NOT happy to have the monitor on my belly and was having a grand time kicking it every chance he got! They sent me home after a while instructing me to stay in bed the rest of the weekend and see my Dr. on Monday. The weekend passed, and I went back to my doctor on that Monday, the 13th. Sure enough my blood pressure was still high, and I was told to go immediately to the hospital, that I would be enduced right away.
Jeff was out of town to Phoenix for the day, so I quickly went home, packed a hospital bag, and drove myself to the hospital. I got checked in, and then was joined by my mother-in-law, and a couple sisters-in-law. After that, the doctor on call came in and started to talk to me. Because my Zacky-boy weighed in at 9lbs on ultrasound 2 weeks prior (plus or minus a lb!), the doctor explained to me that enducing me could be dangerous both to myself and to the baby. She encouraged me to have a c-section without trying to enduce me first because I had such a big boy in there! After a few tears (I had planned to try to go all-natural aka no drugs), I accepted what the doctor had said and agreed to the c-section. Shortly thereafter, Jeff arrived at the hospital, and we began all the prep work to go into surgery.
Without getting into all the gruesome details, at 8:30PM that night Zachary Charles Pitkin was born weighing in at a whopping 10 lbs 1 oz and 21.5 inches long. A big beautiful baby boy! He was taken to the nursery for observation after he was born and got a quick kiss from mom and dad, and he was finally brought back to me a little after midnight that night. He had continued to this day to be a strong healthy little man, and we love him so much, and are so glad he's our first-born son!
