And in continuing with my three-years-ago reflection, here’s what was going down:

Saturday, April 01, 2006 8:55PM

Today is my Dad's birthday. Yes, April Fool's. No, I don't mean that as a joke, I mean that it's true his birthday is April Fool's Day. Yesterday I asked Matthew if he knew who had a birthday today, and he said, "Happy Birthday, Zach?" We all emphatically said, "No! No! We hope not!"

Well, turns out Zach did want to kick off April Fool's Day with a bang. I woke up to some of the worst contractions I've had since I got here. Now, as I've said, all of my nurses here have been wonderful, and I still stand by that. My nurse last night, however, while still VERY nice, sort of made me nervous. She's an older gal and quite a large gal. When she came into my room she was sweating and panting and holding on to any stationary object for support as she walked. She was so shakey when taking my temperature that I thought I might have permanent hearing loss from how hard she pushed the thermometer (all the while a-quivering like mad!) into my ear. So, when I woke up with fairly bad, regular contractions at 6am I was disappointed (but maybe not all that surprised) that she hadn't been monitoring them well enough from the nurse's station to come in, wake me up, and give me something to slow them down. I paged her to the room (twice...as she didn't respond the first time...or maybe it just took her that long to walk down the hall), and after watching the contractions for an additional 10 minutes, she agreed that I needed the Terbutaline shot. The woman was a-shaking so badly I thought she would miss my arm and stab me in the face with the needle. Mind you, my arm is a fairly large target now-a-days as the regiment of 'bulk-up-baby-Zachary' (and therefore moi) is underway and has proven to be quite successful thus far. (Both of my dimples have started to fill in with extra chub -- going, going, gone). So, once again, I had an interesting start to my Saturday. The day ended well with cupcakes and ice cream (more of that important bulking up) to celebrate Dad's birthday. Matthew was convinced that -- just as all gifts -- Dad's present had a "truck inside...funjunjun truck" (that's the phoenetic spelling for how Matthew says fire engine). Needless to say, he was a little disappointed with the computer scanner.