ITS A BOY! Zachary James Martin was born Friday, April 28th, 2006 at 7:05 PM. He weighed 5 lbs 2 oz and was 18 1/2 inches long. He is half an inch taller than Matthew was, but quite a bit smaller. Contractions started to pick up a bit up around 1:00 PM but they weren't too bad. I received my beloved epidural around 1:45 PM, however only my left leg got numb, and when they examined me I could still feel it. As we all know, I LOVE that epidural, so I was pretty upset when it wasn't working. Thankfully, the anesthesiologist came back and readjusted things. I was delightfully numb in no time. Around 3 PM Dr. Anton came in and broke my water. Shortly after that Zach had a big drop in heart rate and I ended up wearing the oxygen mask for the majority of the labor. At 6:45 PM things really began to pick up. It took 3 big pushes and out came Zachary with a good hearty cry. It turns out that I had a freakishly long umbilical chord that was draped around his neck and around his arm. We wanted to donate the chord blood but Dr. Anton wasn't sure there would be enough to do that and have some for pathology to analyze, but then she saw we had more than enough so it worked out. Zachary looked really good and is unbelievably cute. He started doing the little whimper/grunt cry that is common to preemies trying to breath. So after getting to hold him for a couple of minutes he was taken into the NICU accompanied by Daddy. He is doing pretty well. He had a chest X-ray that showed some fluid in his lungs, but they look good he just needs a little bit of help breathing, so he is in an Oxygen tent. He also has an IV with some antibiotics and will most likely start feeding either with a tube or bottle of my pumped milk in the next few days. Just like with Matthew, we should assume that he will most likely be in the NICU for at least a couple of weeks. He is tiny, beautiful, and a fighter and we look forward to introducing him to all of you someday. Time to sleep.