This is a copy and paste of an email that I sent out earlier this evening. I’m too lazy to write it all again.

Hi All,

I just wanted to give you all a quick update on what’s been going on with Josh, Baby Gardner and me.

I’m still pregnant. Praise God for that! I was at the doctors office for one of my regular appointments last Wednesday and I saw the doctor who did the procedure to put in my cerclage. He was so happy that I had made it to 30 weeks and confessed that he didn’t think I would make it even a few days at the time that he put the cerclage in at 20 weeks. Wow! That just gave Josh and I such a new perspective on the situation and how merciful and gracious God has been to get us to this point. He is so good!

While making it past the 30 week mark (I’m now 31 weeks and 2 days) is such a huge milestone we still don’t want to go into labor anytime soon. If the baby is born now there will be definite NICU time and that is just not the start in life that we want for our little one if it can be helped at all. My doctors told me last Wednesday that my situation is much more precarious than it was when I was in for my 28 week appointment. I went from having very little dilation (less than 1cm) and no thinning of my cervix to being 100% thinned and 1cm dilated. They told me to be prepared to go into labor at any point. It could be within days or weeks… they just can’t be sure.

Josh and I are asking you all to keep us in your prayers. We are specifially asking God to get me to full term. We both feel like He gave us a promise at the start of this whole ordeal that our baby would not be born until it reaches full term and we are holding to that promise. I know that I have a responsibilty to stick to this bed rest that God is asking me to do. It’s not easy, but I know it is the best thing for the baby. I was laying flat for the day and at night sleeping with our bed tilted towards the headboard so that my feet are in the air (Josh is doing it too, bless his heart!). This position keeps pressure off my cervix. Now that I’ve received the recent “go into labor at any point” warning from my doctors I’m laying in the “upside down” position at all times to give my cervix as much of a break as I can give it. Josh has been a trooper taking care of things around the house and giving of himself to make sure my needs are taken care of. He is such a wonderful man! Our parents and siblings have also been so wonderful to us. Our moms each take a week a month to come stay with us and help out with cooking, house cleaning and errands so that Josh gets a break. Our dads put up with their wives being gone. Our entire families have been pitching in in whatever ways that they can. Many of Josh’s siblings have come to visit or have pitched in at home to help in his mom’s absence. My siblings are too far away to be able to come for visits, but they call and email often to see how things are going and encourage me with human interaction from the “outside”.

My cerclage stitch comes out after I reach 36 weeks and after that they will just wait for me to go into labor naturally. I’m hoping for at least week after the cerclage is removed to recouperate from strict bed rest and gain a little bit of my strength back before we have the responsibility of caring for our little one.

We are so grateful to all of you who have prayed, brought meals, volunteered for lunch duty, rides to doctor appointments and just plain, old visits to the stir crazy pregnant lady! You are such a blessing to us and we would be hard pressed to go through this time without you! Thank you a million times over!!!! We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with your friends and family!

Merry Christmas!

Love,
Josh, Genelle and Baby G

I guess it’s time I finally post an update on here. A lot has happened since my last update.  The most significant is that we had some scary complications with the pregnancy during the 19th week. I was in for the anatomy screening ultrasound on October 2 and the technician doing the scan noticed that my cervix was opening and closing which is a very BAD thing! We were at Johns Hopkins hospital for the scan and some of the high risk doctors came in to talk to Josh and I and explain what was happening. They told me that this left me at a high risk for preterm labor and that I needed to go directly to my local hospital for care. They called my doctors office and let them know to expect me to check in to the hospital.

Josh and I were really scared, but we got in the car and drove all the way back from Baltimore to Columbia and went straight to the hospital. I was admitted and put on strict bedrest. On October 5th (Sunday morning) a very good doctor from my pratice was able to do a proceedure and put a stitch in my cervix called a cerclage. Basically the stitch holds my cervix shut reducing the chances of preterm labor. This was a blessing in itself because originally we were told that I was too far along to get the stitch (they are normally done at 14 or 15 weeks if needed).

I am now at home on bed rest and trying hard to keep my sanity. God has been good to us and has provided people to help me out during the day so that I have food and water while Josh is at work and someone to talk to to keep sane. He has also provided us with wonderful protection for the pregnancy. The doctors were initially not sure that I would make it to 24 weeks and I just passed 24.5 weeks. Actually, God has given us confirmation that he is going to carry this pregnancy to full term for us and we are trusting him to do that! Aside from the obvious issues with my cervix I have not had any other symptoms of preterm labor and we are trusting God to continue protecting our baby and keep him or her cooking.

I know this post is a bit unorganized and that’s because I’ve told this story so many times over the past few weeks that I’m losing my ability to tell it well. Overkill, I guess. My apologies, but at least you have the general information.

We are asking for your prayers that God continues to protect this pregnancy and our baby and that he gets us to full term. I’ll be on bedrest until at least 36 weeks when they take my stitch out. Sanity and patience would also be good things to pray for. Josh and I are both doing well, but occasionally the stress of the situation does get to us.

Thanks and much love! Josh and Genelle

I can hardly believe it’s been a month since I last updated. Josh and I have been busy once again.  (Story of our life.) After I wrote the last update I spent another week and a half or so not feeling well. Now I mostly have good days with the occasional bad day thrown in… you know… just so I remember I’m pregnant and so that I appreciate the good days. We have been getting more settled into our house, but still have a little bit of work to go before we have completely got it set up the way we want… and then we’ll have to change it all and make it baby proof very soon after that. Oh the fun times. Actually, we are both very excited about the pregnancy and about meeting our little one. I’m just over three months pregnant and can hardly believe that the time is flying by so fast! February 24th is my due date and I know it will be here before I know it!

The last half of July was a busy time for us. We had dinner with friends a couple of times, I had a few doctor appointments to go to and Josh has been very busy at work and with his website business.

August started out with our friend’s Nicole and Jason’s wedding (Congrats to Mr. and Mrs. Holmes!) in Ocean City. It was a fun weekend, but the hotel we stayed in was not very nice. The beds were hard, the bathroom light fixture was only a bare lightbulb because the cover had come off, there was rust in the tub and the toilet wouldn’t flush. Ugh! We only discovered the toilet issue late at night the one night we were staying there and we were on our way to bed so we didn’t bother trying to get it fixed. It was just really frustrating to have paid money for a hotel room and then have so many things wrong with it. The wedding, however, was gorgeous! Nicole was a beautiful bride and the reception was a lot of fun with great food and dancing. The second weekend of August Josh and I packed up the car again and headed up to northwestern PA to visit my family and be a part of my little sister Hailey’s graduation party. It was a huge success! My mom throws awesome shindigs! (Yes, I said shindigs.) This weekend was the first we got to spend at home with absolutely nothing to do in a looooonnnnnggggg time. It was relaxing to not have to drive for hours on Friday night after work and wake up on Saturday morning and not have anywhere we had to be. Unfortunately, I ended up feeling sick all day on Saturday, but used it as a good excuse not to do much and just really relax. (I could have ruined all the good relaxing with errands or chores if I hadn’t been feeling sick.) See, God knows what He is doing. On Sunday we got to go to church for the first time since we had been married! Before you go and call us heathens, let me explain that we have either been out of town or I’ve been on the couch sick with all day “morning sickness” every weekend since our wedding. It was great to get to fellowship with our friends and hear God’s word and worship. We have definitely been missing our church and it’s so refreshing to be back. Josh and I are both looking forward to next Sunday!

This Thursday Josh and I go back to by OB for a check up. Nearly six weeks ago I had some bleeding and had to go for an emergency visit to the doctor’s office. It turns out that my placenta is really low and it was bleeding. They gave me some “take it easy” instructions and said that it should heal up naturally in a few weeks and had me scheduled to come back for this upcoming appointment to make sure that all has healed. Your prayers would definitely be appreciated. We are trusting God that He is in control and is protecting our baby so we aren’t worried, but it would definitely be comforting to hear from the doctor that all is well.

I guess that’s all for now. I’ll update again soon… you know, in a month.  I hope you are all having a happy and safe summer. Back to school in just a few short days for some!

This past month has been a busy one for Josh and me. We’ve been doing a ton of cleaning and organizing, had our first overnight guests, made a trip to Staunton to visit Josh’s family and get his furniture moved up to Maryland and also….. Some surprising news….. I’m pregnant! It was definitely unplanned, but we know it happened about 3 or 4 days after the wedding. Sometimes God has plans that are different then your own… apparently our “we’ll have kids in two years” plan didn’t match His. We are super excited and shocked and are adjusting to this new turn of events in our lives. I’ve been sick for the past two and a half weeks so I’ve been feeling pretty miserable. At first it was what I thought was morning sickness that started right before the 4th of July, but I found out a week and a half later that it was actually the prenatal vitamin making me sick. I stopped taking the icky pill and am taking my own mix of vitamins (Yes, I’m getting all the ones the baby and I need.) and I feel a ton better. However, now I’m dealing with extreme exhaustion. It’s worse then being bone tired. If I didn’t know I was pregnant I’d think I had mono or was dying of some mysterious illness. When I wake up in the morning it’s all I can do to muster the energy for a shower. Once I’m done with the shower I usually take an hour nap and then I get myself moving for the day. When I say moving I mean walking down the stairs to our couch, parking myself on it and turning my laptop on for work. I’ve been incredibly blessed in that my boss is allowing me to work from home while I’m completely exhausted and don’t have the energy to get my butt into the office. Also, they are painting and laying carpet in the office this week and the first part of next week and I can’t be there because the paint and glue fumes aren’t good for the baby.

I’d love to write more about how we found out and how I told Josh, but I’m honestly out of energy and will have to do more writing when I’m feeling better. I’m in my seventh week and should hopefully be feeling better within the next 4 to 5 weeks. I don’t mind if I feel better much sooner so please keep me in your prayers for a fast return of my energy.

Love to you all and more updates to come in the future weeks!

Addendum: Morning sickness just escalated to the actual “being sick” that any pregnant woman dreads. I thought I was going to get out of having that symptom, but about 10 minutes ago it happened. In the middle of the day! I feel cheated. I’m now sipping water and eating saltines trying to get the burning feeling out of my throat. Ugh. Okay, really. You can pray that this goes away too. Yuck!

Editors Note: I wrote this entry nearly four weeks ago but forgot to post it. Sorry!
So we are home and have been married for just over a month. We’ve spent the last few weeks settling into our home together. I (Genelle) have lived here for 5 years and as such have built up a significant amount of “crap” that I have to sort through and decide what I’m keeping, giving away and throwing in the trash. Josh did all of his sorting as he packed up his apartment so he is ahead of me as far as that is concerned, but he still has to deal with getting his stuff settled in the house so we’ve both been working diligently evenings after work and on the weekends.

This past weekend some friends of ours got married and we got to attend our first wedding as a legitimate, married Mr. and Mrs.! The wedding was gorgeous and we are very happy for our friends. Congrats Steven and Janel! We also got to see the new Indian Jones movie, bought a boat load of stuff for our house from Bed Bath and Beyond and hung out with friends all weekend. Two of my out-of-town bridesmaids were in town over the past week so we spent some time catching up with them as well. Needless so say we have been busy, but content and happy.

Josh is napping so I’m sneaking some internet time while I break from the sun. Here’s a copy and paste of an email I sent out to family and friends to update them on our trip. We’ve seen and done tons, more but the internet usage is expensive so I’ll save more updates for after we are home. Miss you all!

Hi All!

We decided it was time to update you all and let you know we are still alive. Until yesterday the weather has been gorgeous here. Yesterday it rained most of the day and Josh and I spent our time under a grass hut/umbrella next to the pool. It was actually a ton of fun. Instead of giving you a long wordy email about all the things we are doing and experiencing we thought we’d give you a list of everything we’ve done, seen and experienced. (Please note that we came up with this idea at the ungodly hour of 6am. Don’t ask me why we insist on getting up that early on our vacation. We  know, we are weird.)

Travel: This was Josh’s first time flying on an airplane. Or any other form of flight transportation. So that was a big deal to start with.

We landed in San Juan, Puerto Rico safely and uneventfully. We ate pizza and bottled water for lunch. Our flight for Puerto Plata was on a small plane. But we got to see the islands out our window for most of the trip.

Customs: A big joke. ANYONE can get into this country. I mean, look, they let Josh in. Really, though. It was easy.

Drive to resort: This was crazy. There were cars passing us on BOTH sides at the same time in only one lane of traffic for each direction. (And we thought DC beltway drivers were crazy!) We also saw a cow, just outside of the airport… he was eating a tree on the side of the road. We also saw 400 Dominican’s on one scooter. Okay, so it was only 4. But that’s still quite a feat.

Resort: We got here, they met us with fruit juice and impressive service. We checked in and were escorted to our room by Luis who always smiles and says hello whenever we pass him now. The room was clean and well decorated. Every time we come back to our room after it has been cleaned (every day!) there are towels in some new and creative shape waiting for us. We also had a bellboy come to our room yesterday with a plate of tropical fruits and wine as a gift from the resort because we are on our honeymoon.

Timeshare pitches: UGH! Until yesterday they have bugged us every day since Monday to buy a timeshare. They started out at $45,000 and have come done to $4,500. Can anyone say RIPOFF? (Granted, they are different packages, but the deal is never any good.)

There are a lot of Europeans at our resort. We’ve seen at least three ladies without the tops of their bathing suits and many Speedo swimsuits on the men. We are permanently scarred for life.

Food: AWESOME! Every meal is a buffet if you want it. There are also some restaurants where you can order off a menu, but we like the buffet the best. I (Genelle) have been eating lots of tropical veggies and fruit. The pineapple is awesome. But I really like the Taro Root, Plantain and Yucca the best. They taste awesome with onion. Really.

Okay, not sure how much internet time we have left so I’m going to send this for now. We will be back in the states on Sunday and back in the Baltimore area on Monday.

We love and miss you all!

Bye!

Genelle & Josh

Whew! We did it! The wedding is behind us and the rest of our life together is in front of us! We are so excited for what God has waiting for us!

We are so grateful to each of you for the support and encouragement you gave us as we went through the busyness of wedding planning. We are so blessed to have you in our lives. Thank you for sharing our wedding day with us! It was very special to have you there.

This past week we have been busy settling in to our new home together. I’ve been clearing room in my closets for Josh so that he can stop living out of his suitcase and storage crates. I know that cleaning out closets sounds like an easy job but you don’t know how many clothes and random items of junk I have. Really, I don’t know of any other person who could shove as much useless stuff into a closet and forget about it as I’ve managed to pack into my closets. To top it off I also had to clear out room for him in the dresser. He now has three drawers and I have six. I know, you don’t have to tell me. I’m really generous. (Please add heavy amounts of self-deprecating sarcasm here.)

This week we’ve both enjoyed taking a break from our diets. We’ve had pizza, Oreo cookies, wine, Indian food (Josh’s first time!), deli sandwiches, pancake and waffle breakfast and ton’s of coffee. (I LOVE coffee!) Tonight we went out to eat at this delicious, little, Italian restaurant called Luna Bella. It’s just down the street from our house and very tasty. Yum!

We leave for our honeymoon on Sunday morning. We are so excited to spend some time on a sunny beach in the Dominican Republic! We plan to soak in the sun, relax on the sand and float on waves of clear, blue water. I can hardly wait!

Before I sign off I have one important notice that I need to put out there. We had one mystery gift. If you are the kind and generous person who gave us the laundry hamper marked “Lights” and “Darks” please email me or Josh and let us know! Somehow the card fell off of it before we opened it so we don’t know who you are. We love the hamper and we want to send you a thank you!

Here’s a picture of Josh and I from our wedding day. Our professional pictures aren’t ready yet, but I thought I’d post one of the ones I stole from someone on Facebook.

Ok, so I want to add two pictures.

I’m going to sign off now. I’ll add another update when we get home from our honeymoon. We plan to take tons of picture and I’m going to post some good ones here. Stay tuned!

Love to you all! ~The Gardners (Yay!)

I know, I know, I should have updated for you all a long time ago. But, do you any of you know how much work it is to plan a wedding, start a new job and move all at the same time? Us too. We feel like we’ve been running on overdrive for the past three months. We are loving every minute of it, but blogging has been one of our minor priorities. As a result of our lack of time, I’ve saved up lots of good stuff to update you all with. Lets see…

Josh has a JOB in MARYLAND! That means he lives in Columbia now! He is working for a company named RWD and he really likes his job. What a blessing! God provided for us in such an amazing way!

Josh is staying with some friends of ours until the wedding at which point he’ll move in with me. Yes, I know, I have to share my beautiful, girl house with a BOY! Josh has been really nice though. He’s keeping his boy cooties all to himself AND he’s helping to paint. For the past week and half we have been repainting the room that is going to become our office. Josh got to pick the color scheme for this room and he chose red. It’s a gorgeous color but it takes FOREVER to paint because of all the coats that are needed to make the wall appear to be a solid red color without any white splotches. I had the brilliant (or not so brilliant) idea of painting horizontal stripes of different shades of red around the room. That little epiphany of mine is making it take three times as long to paint. (The next time I have a great idea, please stop me.) We have two bands of color completely finished and one more to go. We should have it finished by Christmas.

It’s T-minus 11 days and counting until the wedding. We’ve gotten most of the major things in place and only have the little details to work out. The only mishap we’ve had to date is the phone call I got this past Saturday. The place we ordered the bridesmaid dresses from was letting us know that not only were our dresses running late (We already knew that.) but they weren’t going to be delivered until May 30th, six days AFTER the wedding! Luckly, the lady was very nice to us and refunded our money. It turns out that the manufacturer had entered our “Need By” date in their system wrong and they thought our wedding was in June. I want on a hurried hunt for a suitable replacement dress and found one from Ann Taylor LOFT that would do the trick. All nine of the girls went out and bought a dress right away so now we are all set. Whew! The new dresses aren’t as formal as the dress I originally picked, but they are pretty and the girls wearing them will make them even prettier. I’m so blessed to have such awesome bridesmaids who were so willing to run out at the last minute and buy a new dress!

This past weekend the seating arrangement was worked out. Any bride will tell you that this is a nightmarish exercise. I throughly agree! We’ve put a lot of thought, blood, sweat and tears into choosing where each of you are going to sit. Okay, well, maybe not the last three, but definitely the thought. We think you’ll all be comfortable with the people sharing your chair, oops, I meant, table, and that you’ll have lots of fun at the reception. (There will be enough chairs for everyone. We promise.)

We also spent this past weekend in Staunton so that Josh could attend the Bachelor Party his brother threw for him. (Thanks, Seth!) We had a great time visiting with his family and getting away from the painting and chaos of wedding planning back in Columbia. On our way home we stopped at the Green Valley Bookfair in Harrisonburg, VA. WOW! It was awesome… loads of books for fabulous prices. The Bookfair buys books at close out and overstock prices from bookstores that have overestimated their inventory. Then they open up the fair for some preset weekends throughout the year and sell off what they have collected. If you are a bookworm this is definitely the place for you! It’s going to be open the weekend of our wedding and Harrisonburg is only 20 minutes north of Staunton. For those of you coming from Maryland and Pennsylvania you will travel right past it! I would definitely recommend planning some time in your travel for a little field trip to the Bookfair. Here’s the link if you want directions or want to learn more about it. Trust me, it’s worth it!

Tonight I will be getting together with three of my bridesmaids so that they can learn how to lace up and bustle my wedding dress. It’s going to be fun to get to hang out with them and spend some girl time. AND there won’t be a paint brush in sight! Yippee!

I think I’ve flooded you with enough information for now so I’m going to end this post. Josh and I are looking forward to see you at our little “shindig” on the 24th!

I guess it’s my turn to write something on here. Unlike Josh I am not very good at this whole blogging thing. I lack the creativity to make what I write anything more than facts on paper. However, I’m going to give this my best shot.

The wedding plans are coming along well. We are both busy, stressed and overworked, but we are so looking forward to May 24th. (And not just because it means all this stressful planning is behind us. That’s part of the reason, but not the most important part.) We are anxious to spend the day celebrating our love for each other with you all. It’s going to be so great to see you all there! All of the major things are in place and right now we are fine tuning the smaller details. Our invitations are ready to go out in the mail in about a week! (So exciting!)

Right now Josh is in the process of finding himself employment in Maryland so that he can move up here and be close to me. Needless to say I’m ANXIOUS for God to bring the right job to Josh. It will be so nice to have him nearby!

We just spent this past weekend in Pennsylvania visiting with my parents, two of my sisters and my brother’s dog, Max. (Brady is Florida for Spring Break and my parents are dog-sitting their “grandson”.) It was great to get to spend some time relaxing and catching up with them. There was a nice snow storm while we were there and it covered everything in about 3 inches of snow! Awesome! We didn’t have a very good winter for snow here in Maryland (or in Virginia) so getting to experience a snow storm was so much fun.

Alright, I’ve run out of creative juices. Before I go I’ll remind you to take a look at the extra pages I’ve added to this site. You will find information about our big day, hotels in the area and pictures of our bridal party. Have fun and feel free to leave comments! (Josh and I really enjoy reading what you’ve written.)

Welcome to wedding central. Genelle and I want to use this site to share our wedding experience with you. We hope to provide important information and give you a chance to learn more about us. The site is new, so expect continual change, especially over the next few weeks.