Jack's birth story

I know my last post is only at the 20 week marker in my pregnancy...I'll get around to updating it soon- hopefully.....don't hold me to it.

So I better get this in writing before any more lack of sleep causes me to forget it.....not likely but still I know I'll want it in writing. 

It all started on the Friday before my due date (June 22nd- my due date was June 27th), I started having mild menstrual-like cramps that morning, nothing I could really time since it was just this dull, annoying pain.  Around 3ish I called Jason to let him know that I was cramping, just so that he'd be aware of it and more cautious of having his cell phone with him.  Around 3:30 my cramping started to have moments where it would intensify before going back to the annoying,dull pain.  So I found an app that would time contractions....(yep, you read that right- there literally is an app for everything)....once I started timing them they were about 5 minutes apart.  I remember reading about the 5-1-1 rule.....contractions every 5 minutes, lasting for a minute, for the duration of an hour, so I knew I needed to time them for awhile before I could see if we needed to head to the hospital.  I called Jason around 4:15 and told him that I was in a lot of pain and that he should probably head home.  When he got home, we decided that we should go to the triage area of labor and delivery and have them check me to see if I was progressing at all.  (side note: On the Wednesday before this (june 20th) at my 39 week appointment I had FINALLY started to progress and was told I was 1 cm dialated and 50% effaced- not much, but finally some signs of things moving in the right direction!) 
I wanted to get checked out at triage so they could tell me if I was infact dilating more or if I was just experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions (which I hadn't experienced any at all throughout my whole pregnancy- which is why I didn't know if I was in actual labor or not).  Got into triage, they hooked me up to some monitors, and she checked me (read: Holy Smokes!!!! ouch!!!!) and I was a 4!!!! Thank you Lord Jesus! Of course, Dr. Syal was not on call that weekend, so Dr. Everson had to deliver me. 
I was admitted, and into my room around 6:45, got my epidural about 7:20ish and by 8:15 I was 7 cm dialated....things were moving very quickly! About 9:45 they checked me again and I was 10 cm and it was go time.  Started pushing around 10:00, needed the vacuum to help him get out and little Jack Anson Gibbs made his debut at 10:55 weighing in at 6 lbs. 12 oz and measuring 18 3/4 inches (he was a little peanut!!!)

some things that I was not expecting:
*the epidural gave me the shakes....like crazy, uncontrollable shakes. and I felt a warm sensation throughout my body.
*I've never felt the pain during internal checks like I did that night.  I seriously thought some of the nurses and Dr. E were trying to touch my tonsils....sorry for the visual but wow- painful!!!
*it's so cliche but when Jack came out I could not take my eyes off of him, he was gorgeous and so sweet! even with his insane cone head from the vacuum

well there you have it, Jack's birth story. 
Now to update you with pics!

Belly shot- week 20- halfway mark!

This was taken at the dr office as we waited for Dr. Syal to come back- I'm 20 weeks and we had just had our 20 week scan.
The two ultrasound pictures are just some of the shots we got of our little guy. I swear, he has the sweetest little profile I've ever seen!

showers, showers, and more showers!

Jason and I are blessed beyond measure! We had four showers for baby Jack!!!!
I'm still trying to figure out this whole blog thing so I'll try to do a slideshow of each shower....Brenden- need some help here!
April 14th- friend shower.  My good friends Stephanie, Alysia, and Liz hosted my first baby shower at Steph's house.  It was a great turn out with many girlfriends (bootcamp and softball wives), some women I babysat for came, as well as my childhood friend Lauren was able to make it.  The girls left no detail unnoticed and it was a great shower all together. 

April 28th- my family shower.  My aunts and cousins hosted this shower- Aunt Sharon, Aunt Donna, Aunt Becky, Kristen, Shelley, and Marcia.....phew! They rented a community center and it was perfect! We had a lot of people come as well, many of my mom's work friends (who attended her baby shower when she was EXPECTING ME!)- those are lifelong friendships right there! We got some great gifts~! I was shocked to see that my gracious mother in law and sister in law got us our stroller travel system.  My dad, sneaky and techie man that he is did some research on our video monitor and didn't like the one we had registered for so he got us a fancy schmancy one from Motorolla.  It's pretty high tech and we were blown away!

May 2nd- my school shower.  Hosted by my lovely team, Erika, Sue, Joyce, and Ted.  Again, we were overwhelmed at the love and support from everyone.  We got our video monitor (the one we registered for), pack and play (I was completed shocked by this as its a $200 gift!), mobile for Jack's room, among some other great gifts! At this point this kid has a LOT of stuff!!!!

May 14th- lifegroup shower. Hosted by Rachel, Ashley, Lindsay, Brandie, Christy, April, and Amy.  Our lifegroup is seriously the biggest blessing ever.  Jason and I love being a part of such a great group of caring people.  The details of this shower were breathtaking.  Everything from personalized artwork for Jack's room, to cookies that seriously looked like they came out of a Martha Stewart magazine, to the decor to the food was perfect! The girls got us our pack and play (again! how blessed are we?!?!?!)  It was such a great shower, celebrating this new life with some great girlfriends.

ETA: correction, we had five showers....yep, you read that right! 5! My students threw me a surprise baby shower on May 22nd.  I will never understand how 50 sixth graders were able to keep it a secret! I mean really, sixth graders keeping a secret?!?!?!?! There was a precious cake, gifts from my students, and advice book that is seriously the cutest thing ever! I'm amazed by the love of these students for a teacher that was probably moodier than normal this school year.  Oh, the love!

the evolution of a nursery

Literally the day we found out we were expecting a boy I started working on the nursery...wait a minute, that's a lie.  I had been cleaning out the 'nursery' weeks before we found out so that I could work on it as soon as we found out the sex.  Jason has always wanted to do a sports theme but my mindset was that we're both very active and athletic that chances are Jack will play sports anyways and will likely want his room to be sports (I figured when he's getting his big boy room we can make that change then).  I convinced Jason to keep Jack's room 'baby-like' by doing a nautical theme.  I had always liked the 'Baby Boats' from Potterybarn Kids but I remembered getting a catalog last summer with another nautical themed bedding in it that was red, white, and blue....I was instantly in love.  Here is a link to see it from their site....freeport bedding  Of course it was discontinued- that's one bad thing about PBK and PB, they have a crazy fast turn over rate.  I do love that their catalog will suggest Benjamin Moore paint colors that will coordinate with the look of the room.  I went to the local Ace Hardware and picked up Misty Blue and Old Blue Jeans and we painted a little on each wall to get a feel for the colors.  I was pretty apprehensive about Misty Blue because it was the top shade on the paint swatch and it truly looked white with a little blue in it.  But once we got the color on the wall it couldn't be more perfect.  We alternated the lighter blue and darker blue on the wall that the crib was going to go on for an accent wall.  I had just done a weekend babysitting job and made a couple hundred bucks so we just used that money to purchase the paint and supplies. That couldn't have worked out more perfectly!
Now, onto the furniture......
I had been lusting over the Potterybarn kids' 'Larkin' crib for YEARS.  One huge drawback....its $1000 plus tax, shipping, surcharge- because its soo big! Jason wasn't having it....not one bit.  So last summer I told Jason that I would work in the summertime to earn money to go towards it...that's how badly I loved this crib.  It's gorgeous I tell ya! So as I was getting paid from the school district I did a couple of little weekend trip babysitting gigs and ended up saving right around $1400.  I was super pumped....that should have been enough to get the crib....booyah!!! Well fast forward to the start of 2012 and Jason and I were literally about to hit submit on our PBK order when I get a call from my mom telling me that there is a couple selling their Larkin crib AND dresser with changing topper on Craigslist for $900- the crib was currently on sale for $699 but when you add the tax, shipping, and surcharge the total was $940....so right there alone we were saving $40 PLUS we were getting a dresser and changing topper (valued at $1500) for practically free.  We made plans to go check it out and it turned out that it was in great shape.  We brought the cash with us, brought straps to tie the stuff down and some blankets to protect the finishes of the wood.  Well they threw in a super nice floor lamp that they said was broken (after Jason went to Ace Hardware and $7 later it worked....woo hoo! that's a $159 lamp- thank you very much!), they also threw in two lamp shades (one pink, and one white with purple polka dots- at this point we didn't know girl or boy, though I had a pretty good feeling we were having a boy(we got the furniture in early January and found out boy on January 16th)), oh well, we'll just save them for when we do have a girl! They also gave us an end table that we currently have in the manroom/gameroom.  We really cleaned up shop! All of that for $900, plus I had saved that money on the side so our bank account didn't feel a thing! here is a link to the crib and dresser.... dresser with topper, and Larkin sleigh crib. 
I also had the idea of using real oars for the curtain rods in his room....though I had no idea how hard of a time i would have finding the perfect ones! Gander mountain had 6 ft ones but as it turns out, we needed 5 ft. and they didn't carry that length so I went to trusty 'ole amazon.com.  If I thought finding oars was hard, I had no clue how hard it would be to find hardware to hang those oars.  Finally after weeks and weeks or searching, I found some at The Container Store.  I really like the way its looking in his room; its all coming together so nicely!!! We registered for these curtains, and we've already received one panel from Jason's grandparents! *ETA: at my school shower I received a gc to PBK so we now have both panels.
My parents blessed us with the glider and ottoman from Babies R Us.  We registered for a tan microsuede one and it was delivered about a month ago.  Though I would like to Scotchguard it before we put it up in his room.  It looks very nice and is really comfortable, which I'm excited about because I have feeling I'll be spending countless hours in it with Jack.
Pics of his room to come....

Team Blue or Pink?!?!

As soon as Jason found out that we could find out the sex of the baby prior to 20 weeks he was all for it. Our doctor's office charges a $75 fee- but Jason was more than willing to pay it in order to find out if he was getting a little boy or girl.
I had January 16th off because of Martin Luther King jr day so we booked our appointment for that day. Our appt was originally scheduled for 1:40 but it got pushed back to 3:45 due to an interoffice meeting. I had originally wanted to get cupcakes filled with either pink or blue icing to surprise our family, but since our appt got pushed back so late I decided that little cupcake toppers would have to suffice. We got 'it's a boy' and 'it's a girl' and I figured I would return whichever ones we didn't need. Up until this point I had 5 baby dreams and ALL 5 had been about a boy- never about a girl. I was seriously like 98% sure that the baby was a boy and even told Jason that if the technician found lady parts in my ute then I'd be very surprised. As soon as we got in the ultrasound room, the tech asked me what I thought the baby was. Within 5 seconds of having the wand on my belly, she confirmed that we were in fact having a boy! She said his hand would not leave his little willy and I looked at Jason and said 'really?!, y'all learn that early!?!?!' haha. It was such an awesome experience and we got a ton of great pictures of him. Since we were the last appt of the day she spent more time looking at him and talking with us- so I guess it worked out that our appt got moved back. When we left the dr. Office we stopped by Carter's to do a little shopping. I had a 20% off coupon that was expiring that day so it worked out to go after the appt. We got several outfits, then came home to have cupcakes with our parents and our neighbors (Koehlers). I bought cupcakes from RJ Goodies earlier that morning and my mouth was watering to eat one! Our parents were so thrilled, but they all had the same feeling I had- that we were expecting a boy. The only person who thought we were having a girl was my SIL, Marylyn. She's thrilled that we're having a boy so that her son Kaden (4 months) will have a playmate.

So......in June we'll be welcoming into our family Jack Anson Gibbs.

We couldn't be more thrilled. Now, onto the nursery! I've got a ton of ideas, just hope they come together nicely.

The first picture is of the cute cupcake toppers and the yummy cupcakes from RJ Goodies....seriously sooo good!

The second picture is of Jack and I at 18 weeks- we were actually working on his nursery during this picture- some change but still not too much.

Our beautiful baby!!

We went for our first official appt on November 21, my wonderful mom's bday, (though she and my dad were away on a cruise). I was so excited, nervous, anxious, etc. Not sure of I'm just a worry wart or what but I feared that we'd get in there and the ultrasound tech wouldn't find anything in my ute. Morbid....I know. Well luckily, my great friend, Amanda jones, let me in on a little secret of how the first ultrasound goes (internal rather than external) I'm glad she did because the sweet technician never mentioned a thing- she just went to town :O . As soon as she started the ultrasound we could see our little 'Gibblett' right away. She turned the microphone on and the heartbeat was so strong and loud- Jason and I were both in awe. It seriously is the best sound you'll ever hear. I immediately teared up. Then the tech said something that neither Jason nor I was prepared for...'okay, now let's make sure that there is only one in there'. Our jaws dropped- we never even considered the fact that there could be more than one. Jason responded with 'Uh, oh crap- I only signed up for one!'. It was priceless. Needless to say, there is only one Gibblett in there and it's the sweetest thing we've ever seen. Here are the two pictures we got. 1st-is it just me or can you see a face sucking on one hand? 2nd-our sweet baby is already an angel- see the halo?!

Pregnancy so far....

I have to say that I am truly a lucky pregnant chick. Other than VERY few days of feeling nauseous I have had a great pregnancy. There are some days where I actually forget that I'm expecting! Here are some belly shots- starting with 8 weeks and them 14 weeks. Not too much change. I had been doing bootcamp in our neighborhood and I continued it through November- so until I was 10 weeks or so. I actually ran a 10 mile race when I was already pregnant- just didn't know it yet. Luckily I didn't refuel my carbs with a beer afterwards, though now that it's warming up outside that is one of the things I'm craving. Oh well, this baby is definitely worth waiting for.