On May 12, 2002 was the first day of my cycle that we could try to conceive again. Also it was very ironic that May 12th was also Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day was a difficult day for me since I had already lost two babies and had originally figured that I would be spending my first Mother’s Day with a 9-month-old baby. Instead, I was still mourning two angel babies.

There were no special signs, nor special symptoms that told me that I was pregnant with Zachary. By the first week of June, I took a home pregnancy test that came out positive. I immediately called my ob/re and quickly arrange the hcg tests and to be get an increase of progesterone.

The first trimester was probably the most difficult trimester during my pregnancy. I tried not to get too attached to the baby for fear of the worst. During this time, I had several ultrasounds, which reassured us that things were going okay.

The most memorable ultrasound was on June 24, 2002 taken at 6 weeks and 3 days at the local hospital. I literally must have been holding my breathe during the first few minutes of the ultrasound procedure. When the ultrasound technician showed us the pics of what looked like a little lima bean, the tears came streaming down my face and hubby’s. We were so overjoyed. This was the first time seeing a baby alive on the ultrasound screen.

The next major highlight was September 6, 2002 when I got the long-awaited phone call from the amnio results. The genetic counselor told me that the amnio test showed no abnormalities. The genetic counselor mailed the test results to our home. I opened the paperwork to discover that we were having a little boy. I had already prepared a long list of little boy and little girl names.

During the next two weeks, hubby and I took one evening to decide on a special name. It didn’t take us too long to agree. We both liked the name Zachary and decided to use Burnell as the middle name. Burnell is the name of hubby’s father. We wanted to honor Terrill’s dad by naming the middle name after him.

Zachary was very stubborn when he was in my womb. He didn’t kick very often, which of course caused some additional stress on me. It wasn’t until December 31, 2002 that his daddy felt him kick for the first time.

With this third pregnancy, I originally started counting how many days I kept the pregnancy. As time progressed, I then started thinking in terms of how many weeks I currently was. It wasn’t until the end of the third trimester that I started counting down the days till Zachary’s estimated birth date, which was a day of love – Valentines Day 2003.

My ob had originally scheduled Zachary’s inducement for February 13, 2003. On February 6th, the ob called to re-schedule the inducement to another day since he was not available on February 13th. Terrill and I wanted to keep the inducement on the same week, so the ob re-scheduled the inducement to February 14th.

On February 14th at midnight, Terrill and I checked into Good Samaritan Hospital. The inducement procedure started with a cervical softening gel at 2:00am. At 7:00am, the Picotin was started for the inducement. After 5 ½ hours, I was taken off the Picotin since I had not dilated at all. The ob decided to try for a second inducement for either February 19th or February 22nd. I was told to come back to the ob’s office for a checkup on February 18th.

On February 18th, I went to the ob’s office. Zachary had still not dropped and I still was not dilated. The ob shocked me by telling me that he had changed his plans for Zachary. He felt that a second inducement was not going to work since I was already a half week late. The ob decided to schedule a c-section for the next morning.