Another HUGE Cloth Diaper Giveaway!

This one is over at The Cloth Diaper Whisperer’s Blog: http://www.theclothdiaperwhisperer.com/2009/11/bum-flipn-genius-super-fluff-friday-56.html

This is a huge deal and the winner will receive lots of cloth diapers plus a Flip Video Camcorder!  Hurry to enter because the deal is done tonight at 7 pm!  I’m so excited for this giveaway!!!! (Can you tell?)

Shopping For… and Winning (?) Cloth Diapers

As many of you know, we plan to use cloth diapers upon the arrival of Baby Girl Gossett.  We decided to do this for many reasons, but the two most obvious ones are (1) Environment, and (2) Cost.  (To learn more, check out the Diaper Facts at The Real Diaper Association’s website: http://www.realdiaperassociation.org/diaperfacts.php)

That stated, the initial cost of setting up a cloth diaper stash can be quite daunting, leading some to believe that it won’t be worth it after all. Yes, the snazzy new All-In-One style cloth diapers can be pretty expensive (anywhere from 14.95 to around 30.00 EACH), but I truly believe that there is a way to get the diapers you need (and maybe even a few fancy ones) without sacrificing the aspect of saving money (versus buying disposable diapers every few weeks).

I follow a blog called The Cloth Diaper Blog (http://www.clothdiaperblog.com/), and every Friday they have a giveaway called “Feed Your Stash Friday.”  This means I can get FREE cloth diapers just by adding a comment to the blog, if my comment/name happens to be the lucky one drawn.

Last week’s giveaway is one of the biggest I’ve seen on the site yet.  It is running for two weeks this time, and there are ten ways to get your name in the cyber-hat.  Basically, I could win about half the diapers I will need for the entire time Baby Girl is in diapers!  This giveaway package is valued at just under 250.00 dollars!  The contest can be found at: http://www.clothdiaperblog.com/fysf-super-sized-giveaway-nov-20-dec-4-2009/

Along with this potential score, I looked online last night and discovered that there were more giveaways and sales going on at Diaper Junction (the store connected with the blog), too.  Some of the diapers on my wish list were 20% off, plus if I was one of the first 20 orders made on Black Friday, I could get another diaper TOTALLY FREE.  So I stayed up until 11 pm (12 am Eastern) and placed an order.  Oh yeah, and placing that order gained me another entry into the BIG contest that is going on until December 4.  AND I got free shipping!  I now have about half the diapers I am going to need, and I have spent less than 80 dollars so far.

Now I understand what all the excitement about Black Friday shopping is–it is so much fun to share when you know you’ve scored a great deal!  I am now a huge proponent of online Black Friday shopping, as you can score some deals while in the comfort of your home.

Belly Progress

September 20, 2009 :: 3 months pregnant

 

October 13, 2009 :: Almost 4 months

 

October 19, 2009 :: Officially 4 months

 

5 Months Pregnant!

“The Blue Room” Becomes “The Nursery”

Hello Blog-Readers:

I haven’t posted in a while, partly because there hasn’t been much exciting news since finding out this little one inside me is a girl (!!!!!) and partly because I’ve been busy (ok, and lazy, too).

It has been fun to finally feel the baby in there. These past two days I have been feeling some definite movements. Ryan even got to feel it once when Baby Girl was especially active. I placed his hand on my ever-protruding belly in the spot where she was, but he didn’t realize it was actually her at first; he asked me if I was flexing a muscle! (The muscle in my uterus? What?)

In other news, we have successfully assembled the crib, and the nursery is really coming together! We have pretty much everything where it needs to go (except wall hangings, etc.).  Because we are turning our guest room–known as “the blue room” for obvious reasons–into Baby Girl’s nursery, she will indeed be surrounded by blue walls. I’m sorry if this bothers some of you, but we don’t care and I don’t think the little one will either. I won’t DRESS her in blue or anything, but there was no good reason for us to re-paint this beautiful room after only two years. Without further ado, below are pics of us putting together the baby bed and where things are arranged in the nursery right now.

As It Turns Out…

our little one is a GIRL!

I don’t know what all those funny dreams of boys were about, though! However we are super-excited to welcome a little girl into the world in about another 20 weeks!  The ultrasound was a lot of fun, although, yes I had to go to the bathroom pretty bad. But being able to watch our little baby on the screen was so amazing. We SAW her heart beating! How awesome is that!

Here is the first picture of Little Girl Gossett. This is her profile and you can see she is reaching her hand up to her forehead too.

These are the girl parts. It looks weird here, but we could clearly see on the ultrasound screen that she was indeed a girl. This view is as if she is sitting on a glass table and we are looking up. (Yeah, I know it is kind of weird to show your child’s genitals in a blog post, but whoever changes her diaper will see it soon anyway.)

Her arm and hand.

 

Her baby toes and part of her foot.

 

She really gave us the “peace” sign! I love this kid already!!!!!   Even if she does look a little bit like E.T. right now!

 

 

Predictions, Premonitions

In two weeks we go for an ultrasound of Baby Gossett–I’ll be 20 weeks pregnant!–and we HAVE decided to go ahead and find out the gender of Baby.  Initially we weren’t sure we wanted to know. We also toyed with the idea of finding out but still keeping it a secret until the birth. However we just want to know and we want to share! Just because it is fun!

Over the past few months we have had mixed emotions when it comes to the baby’s gender. At first, I admit, I really wanted this child to be a girl. Ryan and I will most likely adopt subsequent children after this one. We are almost 100% set on this decision and we are happy about it! However, this could mean that little Baby Gossett #1 would be the only child we get to name! And I liked the girl’s name I had picked out! (I also like the boy’s name we’ve picked out, though.)

Anyway, somewhere along the line, I started to change my mind and wish for a boy. Then one night I had a dream that we had a boy, we named him the name we have picked out, and after two days he knew how to crawl! It was a silly dream, but was it also a premonition? I don’t think it means our baby will crawl after two days, but it might mean that he is a boy…?  I told Ryan my dream, and a few days later he had a very similar dream! In his dream, we were having a boy!  A few weeks later, I told Ryan’s mom about the dreams.  Later she also dreamed that we were having a boy. WOW. That is a lot of dreaming about boys. I think the dreams could have been influenced because of talking about them to each other, but it’s still weird that three people had very similar dreams.

Now Ryan and I are pretty convinced that this little one is a boy. We will find out what the ultrasound has to say soon! We will find out for certain in about 22 weeks or so when Baby Gossett makes his (okay, or her) entrance into the world.

The Bump Thus Far

Baby Gossett is in there somewhere, and is apparently around the size of a turnip. This amazes me! I haven’t “felt” any movements yet. The newest pregnancy symptom I am having is an increased frequency of the need to urinate! I am peeing more than I ever have before! Didn’t you just want to know that?

Cold Season Hits the Gossett House

Hello blog-followers! I am back after a blogging hiatus. Excuse my absence, please, as I was temporarily occupied with the dreaded cough-cold-sore throat combination. Thankfully, I had no fever so this isn’t the flu of any kind, and it doesn’t appear to be bronchitis or any other serious ailment. Just your run-of-the-mill seasonal cold. Except that I’m pregnant, so taking my usual get-rid-of-all-symptoms-and-knock-me-out-cold medicine wasn’t allowed (must keep Baby Gossett safe!), making this seem like a much worse cold than I’ve ever had before. Of course, this was just an illusion. In reality it was no worse than other colds I’ve had over the years… but until this one, I’ve never had to actually deal with the symptoms of a cold. Modern medicine is truly amazing. Oh yeah, AND because I’m pregnant and thereby more prone to gag, the phelgm in my throat has made me throw up a few times. (Only a few!) I’m actually glad I became accustomed to throwing up occasionally during that whole “morning sickness” phase.

Anyway, all that is just to say, I’m back now, and I plan to keep on blogging to update you on us and our baby’s progress.

My Inspiration

By the way… I got the idea for starting this blog from the blog : http://hautemomma.wordpress.com

I don’t know them personally but they seem cool…

Our Story

Ryan and I have both felt for some time that we are meant to be parents.  Yet we didn’t know what form that would take.  I personally believe that I have been promised by God that we would have a family.  If you don’t believe in God or have never felt His presence, it may be difficult to imagine Him promising me something like that.  The best way I can explain it is that I was praying about this one day and the vague sense of children just came into my mind.  Instead of filling me with grief/anxiety like this thought normally would have, I felt an overwhelming peace.  It was as if God was telling me he had it all in His control, and that I could rest in His promise to provide when the time was right.

It wasn’t always easy to believe that. Over the past two years, we have seen our share of the “Not Pregnant” words on the tests. The first year was the hardest in many ways. I could feel that something was wrong–why WOULDN’T we be pregnant?–but had no evidence. People told us to relax and it would happen. We were told that most likely nothing was wrong, but that it would just “take us a while” to conceive. I know our friends and family (and doctors!) were just trying to be loving and supportive during a tough time, but really, it wasn’t easy to hear those things. The encouraging words didn’t seem to help anything.

Finally, one year had passed since our official time of “starting to try,” so we were able to go and see the doctor about fertility tests. I was baffled, since my cycles were usually running like clockwork. After a few tests for each of us, we found out that we each had some problems. Specifically, one of my fallopian tubes was blocked and my husband’s “count” was low. Even though these results were not good, they still made me feel relieved that we knew, at last, what was going on. THIS was the reason we had not been able to conceive. The chances were not good that we would conceive without medical intervention.

Tired of visiting doctors every few weeks and needing time to consider our options, we decided to take a few months and think about what to do next. Meanwhile, every month as I got a period, I alternated between feeling God’s peace about our situation or being completely devastated, thinking we would never have children. My husband was INCREDIBLY SUPPORTIVE through all of this. We prayed together so much and I believe we have grown closer through the struggle of all of this. Just one silver lining!

In early June we decided to pursue foster care and adoption. Partly, we felt that adoption was our only option if we wanted to have kids. This was based on a decision made long ago not to pursue medical intervention (IVF, etc), and also on my personal desire to adopt if at all possible. We wanted to be proactive and begin our family sooner rather than later. All along, we prayed for the Lord’s guidance as we went along. We called our families to inform them of new additions that could be arriving even before the standard nine months. (Ha, ha.) Although some of our dearest friends and family members were concerned for us, ALL of our loved ones responded with support. We could not be more blessed! We were very excited about our decision to become Licensed Foster Parents and felt that it was God’s plan for us. (We still feel this way, but now that is plan is on hold for a year or two.)

We were in the middle of our 9-week foster parent course when we discovered I was pregnant! So even with all of our “problems,” and for no reason either of us could fathom, we would be having a biological child after all. Wow! God’s timing really is perfect. (For more on my initial reaction to the news, see previous post.)