This is our little story on the day we found out and how we shared the sweet news of our first baby! It is nothing too interesting but it is a fun memory we will have forever. Maybe it will give you ideas or maybe you just want to know everything about the occasion…either way it will give your heart a good smile. Plus, you’ll see our unique idea that we surprised our parents with, how I do my silhouette pics, etc. Do not miss the special movie clip of our family opening their surprise gift! Their joy is contagious. We are so excited about this and I of course love documenting so why not make it into a post??
I was getting ready for bed and asked Josh if he thought I should take a test. He said, “nahh just wait so you don’t waste it.” I thought he was probably right and it was nothing. I had worried about getting unexpectedly pregnant during college since I decided to go off birth control in 2014 for health and belief reasons. Anyways…so for 2 years I had looked up first signs of pregnancy OFTEN out of paranoia and it was always nothing. Warning Girl Sentence: It was only day 39 and plus I have a super long and irregular cycle–anything from 30-48 days was considered normal for me.
We went to bed and planned to go to church in the morning. I woke up at 6 am unexpectedly, with taking a pregnancy test at the front of my mind. So I prayed for a minute in bed, “God If I am pregnant please don’t let it be a questionable faint line. You know that I need to know if I am or not and please no false negatives or positives!”
I sneaked quietly out of bed with an old pregnancy test from college. I told you I was paranoid. I took the test and literally waited for 2 seconds and the line that appeared was so dark…darker than the standard line! My heart was pounding out of my chest and I immediately began to shake with joy. I had to do a double take and even look at the box again to see if I was reading the test correctly! lol. You could say I was a bit shocked!
I broke through the bathroom door into our bedroom and leaped onto sleeping Josh. I said, “Josh! Josh! It is really real! The test says positive!” He opened his eyes and smiled. I think I scared him…lol. He just hugged me with a big smile. It seemed like his mind was racing and he wasn’t so sure about the news–as any new dad would think. according to my Glow App I found out at 4 weeks and 3 days–about the size of a tomato seed. So we decided to wait awhile before telling anyone. It was soooo hard to keep the exciting news a secret! We wanted to make it special just between us and wanted to share it in a special way. We felt this news was just WAY too special to share over a phone call to our parents! We immediately started thinking about how we should tell our parents/soon to be grandparents and then I made a healthy breakfast!
Fast forward to when I was 8 weeks pregnant and we were headed to our first doctors appointment. We knew it was the REAL DEAL but for some reason just had to see it for a peace of mind. I doubted for just a second that I was even pregnant because I seriously had no symptoms that you hear about until I hit 6 weeks and 1 day. I started to feel nauseous in the mornings with some back pain, but that could be anything right?? Ha! wrong!
We walked into the appointment ready to see our first baby in black and white. I wish so much we would have recorded this appointment. Make sure YOU do for your first! It was truly special. Our little baby looked somewhat like a little seahorse with a big belly. Seeing the live ultrasound was so much better than the pics my doctor took. I can’t really even tell what I am looking at in the pic below but I could see the little baby perfect during the appointment. The little heart beat hit 168 and put a huge smile on our faces. Some say a high heart rate means it’s a girl! Hmmm?? We will find out soon! Eeek!
Right after this appointment we felt like we could rest assured knowing that everything looked good and normal. This just made it all the more real for us. We were able to take the rest of the day off from work to stay in our baby bliss. So we went to Target to go shopping for our baby announcement idea…a surprise box! This box was going to be filled with a little story all about the new baby and that is exactly what we did.
There was a ton of cute stuff in the $1 section at Target, which is where we found the mini September calendars to represent when the baby will be due. We also drew a little heart around the due date–September 14th. We grabbed a cute box, some crinkle paper filling and some blank cards. We went to a special dinner then we went home to enjoy the rest of the day together. It was just like any other day together but this day we couldn’t wipe off the smile we had on our faces.
Sweet P “the baby” at around 9 weeks was going to be the size of an olive so we were on a search to find something olive-y. Josh was roaming around World Market one day and showed me this cute little olive packet actually called OLOVES. It was perfect and fit right in the box. Josh made copies of the ultrasound picture and we put it in little frames we found at Marshals. We also dropped several pink and blue Hershey Kisses to give it a baby boy or girl touch. Lastly, we found this chalk board clip because we bought hello name tags for the grandparents. We wrote out some of our favorite grandparent names and clipped them with “choose wisely.” We are the oldest in our families so this is a big decision for our parents. Sweet P will be the first great grand baby on my family as well. You could say that this baby will definitely be smothered with love.
Now we just didn’t know how we were going to give these boxes to three sets of grandparents! Then it hit me! My family was going to come for my brother-in-laws graduation the next weekend! We thought that would be perfect to surprise them then! Now we just had to get Josh’s parents to come down for that same weekend. So Josh ended up calling them and basically inviting them to come visit us with absolutely no excuses. lol. They might have had a suspicion after that.
We had all three parents coming to visit and scheduled in our heads when we would present the announcement box to them. Josh’s parents were coming to stay with us first. We were excited and nervous. Just to say we were pregnant was so foreign to us. The next day my mom, Jason, Kenzee and Cree came in town and we shared with them the news. My Dad and Jenn finally came and we gave them the box before the graduation. Everyone was thrilled and excited for us. The only issue was they were stumped on what grandparent names to pick! lol! It was the topic for days!
Watch this sweet video of our family receiving the news!
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Overall it was a fun weekend with family. We were dying to tell our families but just had to wait to share it in a special way. Now all we had to do is wait until it was safe to share to our outside friends and family. Doctors generally say to wait until you make it past your first trimester at 12 weeks. My next appointment was exactly at 12 weeks and 1 day so we decided to wait until then just to make sure everything was okay with the baby. Of course it was! It took the doctor a little bit to find the heart beat but that was only because she was searching on the left side of my stomach at first. I knew that Sweet P always hung out on the right. So she swung it over to the right and found the little heart beat again but at 158 this time. Listen to the little pitter-patter yourself!
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I was so excited to share the news of our first baby to ALL of my friends and family. My family and I could not wait one more second. Right away I made a Baby Sweet P album on Facebook so that I could have a designated spot for all my pregnancy posts and memories. I want to share every moment with you all. I also love going back and reading old posts and seeing old pictures. So this is a must for me. Later that week I had bought a few things such as a hello sign from Target’s $1 section and the “P” from Walmart to make an announcement post. Josh bought the cutest A&M beanie and booties at Cracker Barrel in the past so it was obviously included. The rest I already had at the house including flowers from Valentines day that I decorated it with!! Kroger flowers last so long! It turned out cute! I only forgot about the September calendar I wanted to use but all the parents took the calendars back with them.
Last but not least I added a silhouette picture to the album so it would show both pictures after posting. I love this silhouette look because it really draws the focus to my baby bump. Plus I never have to come up with a cute outfit or do my make up for my weekly update. lol. So what I do is wear a black tank top and black skin shorts and then I just do my hair. Buns look really pretty with silhouettes. I stand in front of my window with my white curtains and open the blinds behind. Josh takes my picture and all he does is tap the corner of the window on the phone. You could do this same thing by propping up your phone to the right height, setting the 10 second timer and by tapping the phone screen in the corner. This gives an ALMOST silhouette effect but it wasn’t enough for me. So I used my VSCO app and hit the X1 filter and there you have it a perfect silhouette!
Josh and I feel like we are in a dream. We have anticipated this chapter of our story for years–being high school and college sweet hearts–we thought this day would never come! I hope you enjoyed this post. We are sure excited! I hope you live more fully and eat more lovely…I know I am trying my best for Sweet P.
Love,
Dancee & Josh Pinkston
About Dancee,
Dancee Pinkston is a certified birth doula & childbirth educator. She is the creator of the Fearless Momma Birth Academy with over 770K+ Subscribers and 252,000,000+ views. A nutritional sciences graduate of Texas A&M University, mother of 2 girls and wife to her high-school sweetheart since 2012. Her mission is to help pregnant mommas have better birth experiences and live more empowered lives.