Zachary Scott Buchanan

We had a baby boy on September 29! We are so excited for him to be here. He was born at exactly 37 weeks, so 3 weeks early. I knew he was going to come early, but we wanted an October birthday for him so bad. Didn't happen. Maybe there was a little bit too much nesting happening. On Monday I went to my doctor's appointment (where I didn't let him check me because I didn't want it to start labor), took the girls to the library, took the van through the car wash and vacuumed it, went shopping for sheets for girl's new beds, trimmed the bushes and flowers, dusted the shutters, made dinner, etc. I guess I should have taken it easier if I wanted him to wait a few more days. That night Scott was laying on the couch in SO MUCH pain from his double ear infection. His ears hurt, his head hurt and he just felt awful. We went to bed at 11pm and prayed that the baby would not come yet because Scott felt so bad. My prayer did not work.

At 12:30am I sat up in bed and knew that my water had broken. I woke Scott up with an apology and told him we had to go to the hospital. I once again felt so surprised that the baby was coming so early and felt very not ready for it all. We called a girl from our ward who babysits often to come stay with the girls through the night and Scott and I drove to the hospital.

We got there and waited a while for anything to happen because of some emergencies they were taking care of. I had contractions on my own for awhile and then about 3:30 am I got an epidural and they started the pitocin. Getting the epidural was probably the worst part of it all. It hasn't been bad before, but the guy doing it was just chatting and making jokes and not paying a bit of attention to me. I hated it. My blood pressure crashed right afterward and I felt like I was drifting away. Once that was stabilized we just waited until I was dilated and ready to push. We were absolutely thrilled when Dr. Thackeray got there and it was time. By the way, I love Dr. Thackeray (my O.B.). It just made everything more calm to have him there and know that he would be delivering yet another one of our babies. I pushed for about 20 minutes and then was told to relax for awhile and lay on my side because the baby was turned side ways. This got the baby's head where it needed to be and I got to start pushing again. After another 20 minutes he was here. He was born at 8:50am. He was perfect, very blue, but perfect. As I held him in my arms I determined that he looked a lot like Brielle did as a newborn and he does. He is gorgeous.

I had a very nice hospital stay and literally pretended I was on vacation at a resort somewhere. I had a beautiful view of the mountains out the window and watched the rain and snow fall on them. I had meals delivered to me in bed. Scott and I watched movies while holding our new baby boy. Zachary spent the nights in the nursery, so we got good sleep after a sleepless night. And the girls were well taken care of at home (thank you Tawna and Sarah). It was wonderful.

We have all been home together for about a week now and we are doing well. Some moments are crazy and some are just heaven. Ava was a terror the first few days, but is now realizing that I am not leaving her again and is calming down. Brielle is a great big sister. She loves to feel like she is helping and loves to hold Zach. She just needs to control her wiggling and bouncing all around him. Scott went back to work yesterday and thankfully my mom arrived. It's so nice to have someone here to help with the girls when I am taking care of the baby. Things are very good right now. I should say though that I am VERY nervous for the months ahead of having three such small kiddos. Yikes. Wish us luck. We wouldn't want it any other way though. We are so happy to have these cute kids!September 28. The day started like this. I was on my way to my 37 week doctor's appointment.Surprisingly enough, the day ended like this. About ready to deliver little Zachary.He's here. This is when I really freaked out. When I saw these three little kids in a chair together and knew they were all mine to come home with me and be taken care of by me. Wow. I also panicked when I saw we were driving a mini van full of car seats. What have we done?Aunt Tawna and Zach.
Grandma and Papa meeting their new grandson.Zach in his car seat for his trip home.Brielle and Ava adoring their new baby brother.
We enjoyed a very relaxing, not leave the house, not shower, lay around weekend of watching conference. Here is Scott and Zach together.And me pretending to watch conference, but just staring at my boy.Yea! He takes a bottle too. Actually, he takes anything. I've never experienced nursing like this. Wow. From minutes old he was a good nurser and continues to be. He's killing me. Thank heaven Scott can do one bottle each night for him.Smiling and giggling in his sleep.Scott took the girls to the zoo for his last day of paternity. They were all so excited to see the new baby elephant. He called me to say they were miserable and leaving. It snowed on them. They were all freezing. So Scott took them to Friday's for hot chocolate and chicken fingers. That made it all better.