THE PARENTS: Britni Zahodnick, 31, and Zane Schultz, 31, of South Philadelphia
THE CHILD: Aiden James, born Feb. 25, 2022
AN INDELIBLE MOMENT: The night of their engagement, they stayed up late, drinking whatever was in the apartment, dancing to John Mayer records and FaceTiming family members with the news.
He heard her slip out of bed early in the morning. He heard something crinkle behind the bathroom door. Then Zane could tell that Britni had left the apartment and ducked into an adjacent stairwell.
A few minutes later, in the kitchen, she was acting strangely — ”Can I make your coffee? Can I get your yogurt?” — so he decided to ask directly. “Are you pregnant?”
“No,” she said.
“I knew I couldn’t keep it to myself, but I was nervous,” Britni recalls. “Five minutes later, I said, ‘Babe, I’m pregnant.’ Then we sat on the couch together.”
The cascade of emotions — thrill, terror, shock, anxiety — made Britni think of one of her favorite quotes, by Walt Whitman: “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
As for Zane, “I could see she was waiting to see what my reaction was. I needed those 30 seconds to process: Time to step up and rise to the challenge.”
Their courtship, back in 2018, was a tale of stops and starts: a health-care coalition meeting at which Britni tried talking to a seemingly-indifferent Zane; then another quarterly meeting of that group when he sat down next to her, his vibe this time open and friendly; then a Tuesday night date that started with soul-baring conversation at Time and ended at 4 a.m.
“I had been on a million first dates,” Britni says, “and that was the first time I thought: Wow, that was so easy, effortless, and fun. I knew it had a lot of potential.” The two talked about her niece, who had needed intensive medical care at CHOP after birth, and about the friend of Zane’s who died of heart disease when the two were in high school.
Still, both were wary to declare themselves all-in. Memorial Day was a turning point: They spent the whole weekend together, extending the time with a walk, then a spontaneous pizza dinner, then a hike the next morning to the covered bridge on Forbidden Drive.
“We talked for the entire four-mile hike,” Zane says. “I think we both knew this was the real deal.”
A few months later, he moved into Britni’s 614-square-foot apartment, along with his guitar, record albums, and cat. They learned each other’s quirks — Zane tended to walk with a heavy footfall, and Britni abhorred clutter — but it was the pandemic that tested their cohabitation.
“We were launched into living and working together in a small amount of space, both taking calls, me stepping into the bedroom and using our tall dresser as a stand-up desk,” Zane recalls. Those months also bolstered their relationship. “If we can survive this, against all odds, we should get married,” he remembers thinking.
Britni had always hoped to inherit her grandmother’s diamond solitaire. In August 2020, while visiting her parents in New Jersey, over a dinner of fresh pasta from the Italian Market, Zane asked them for the ring.
A month later, he proffered it during a hike to the covered bridge. “I’m on one knee on the gravel. I gave her the spiel. We cracked a little bottle of champagne,” Zane recalls, and two friends, in on the plan and along for the hike, took pictures.
They were planning a big wedding, a celebration at Manayunk Brewing Co., but a long stretch of unemployment for Zane — plus that positive pregnancy test — made them downsize to a small ceremony and a pasta dinner planned for this October.
Being jobless initially rattled Zane’s resolve about parenthood. “I definitely had my moments, during unemployment, when it was dark and scary and I lacked belief in myself. But as soon as we found out we were pregnant, the fear subsided: All right. Let’s go. What do we have to do?”
And there were advantages to having more leisure time during the pregnancy. He could attend all the prenatal appointments and ultrasounds. He could support Britni through the intense nausea of the early months and the ferocious carpal tunnel syndrome that came later. “I got steroid shots in my wrists,” Britni recalls. “The pain was so bad I would wake up crying. I couldn’t fluff my pillow or brush my teeth.”
They learned the baby was a boy and polled Britni’s nieces and nephews — the vote was unanimous — about whether to name their son Nathan or Aiden. Britni began seeing a therapist, a step she hoped would head off any postpartum depression, and the two did six hours of instruction with a friend who is both a doula and a labor and delivery nurse.
“I’d never been hospitalized before,” Britni says. “I was afraid to get an IV. Having those classes was very helpful in easing my anxiety.”
She opted for an induction at 40 weeks and one day, the start of a labor that lasted 31 hours and felt like “waves — moments that feel unbearable and then periods when you can rest.” When a doctor announced, “You’re completely dilated,” and nurses broke into cheers, Britni responded with sobs: That means I have to push.
She did — with Zane holding one leg and the doula the other — until a moment when the doctor abruptly told her to stop pushing. The baby’s shoulder was stuck in her pelvis. “But everyone got him out, and I heard the doctor saying, ‘Look up!’ It was a Lion King moment: This beautiful, bloody creature was being raised above my belly.”
Recovery was harder than either of them expected — Britni sobbing ceaselessly at one point, and needing Zane’s help to and from the bathroom — but at least they were together, a full-time team.
“It’s hard to put the change into words,” Zane says. “It feels like you’ve aged a bunch of years, but more so from the wisdom perspective. I’m willing to do whatever I can do to make sure there isn’t a single possibility that doesn’t exist for him.”