Quick update

We just wanted to give a quick update on our Grey. He's out of surgery and things went well! He is in recovery now and we should be able to see him soon. The surgery only lasted about an hour to an hour and a half and the neurosurgeon is happy with how everything went. Thank you so much for all of the thoughts and prayers! They were definitley felt this morning. We'll post more later!

Not exactly how i pictured my first hair cut.

That's what Grey would probably say, provided he could talk. Yup, the little guys head is gonna get "buzzed" but not really the buzz cut we had in mind. Tomorrow morning Greyson will go in for his shunt surgery and as scared as we were the other day, we seem to have it together this evening and are feeling strong. We have to be for Grey.

So a simple prayer tonight...May God's hands continue to hold Greyson as he undergoes his surgery. WE pray he's as tough as he was for his first surgery and will be home in time for the weekend.

A Big thanks to all for your encouraging words and prayers that last few days. Admittedly, we lost it for a while and were very discouraged by the news. it's like we took a few steps back in our faith that evening. It's funny how things always seem scarier in the evening, when your in bed and your mind races. But, time and time again things seem way more manageable when the sun comes up the next day. And, sure enough this morning was no different.

love,

Andy, Leigh, and Greyson

If Greyson can smile...

Then I guess we have to put on a smile. A smile was a hard thing to come by from both LEigh and I this evening as we found out the little guy indeed will need a shunt :( We knew it was coming, it was almost like we were just trying to squeak out another week, or two or a month... we were hanging onto anything. It seems pretty heavy and hard to bare right now, and although we say to ourselves "Really, one more thing God, you really think we can handle one more thing?" we trust we can make it through.

Oh yeah, I guess I should return to my previous post and remind myself that life includes detours...and guess what? the traffic is backed up and we have to go around somehow. And we will, we'll navigate through this one and reconnect with the road soon enough.

This surgery, which is scheduled for 7AM this thursday, is "a piece-of-cake" by comparison to his closure surgery a couple weeks ago. The kicker for us being we got to take this little guy home and discovered we loved him even more than when he was first born!!! So to see him go thru another surgery is obviously going to be very difficult for us.

So with surgery come risks of scary things, things the neurosurgeon "roboticly" spewed at us. I just have a feeling most neurosurgeons just aren't the life of the party, or someone you'd particularly want to have a bite to eat with. (any neurosurgeons reading this, I apologize...keep being brilliant and helping babies like ours) We pray our surgeon again is at his best, and nails the procedure! So as scared as we are now, we've already been reminded that we are not alone, and we find comfort in this. Thank you to all, we love you and really need you these days.

On a lighter note... after coming home from work I needed to hold my boy badly. Leigh had just finished feeding him so i snatched him up, and layed on the couch with him on my chest. It was great...until I heard i rumbling in his throat. I tried to move, but it was too late, he spit up big time, right down my shirt!!! yep, I'm officially a dad. :)

love to all,

the Gibbs'

Prayers for Monday

Today Great Grandma Gibbs was finally able to meet her first great grandson, and she was as excited as any 95 year old women I'd ever seen! She kept saying "There's nothing softer." as she rubbed his face and little hands. It was a very special moment to have her hold Greyson, and to be honest a couple years ago we thought the chances of her seeing a great-grandchild was pretty far-fetched. But shes surprised a lot of people and is doing well these days!

Another busy day spent with family and friends. At times its been exhausting, but exhausted is our new reality at this moment. The quicker we except it and don't fight it the better we will adapt to it.

One large prayer request for Greyson on Monday, hes got his head ultrasound in the morning and then a trip to the neurosurgeon to evaluate the results. We have been having such a great week with grey that we are really not looking forward to this appointment. So we pray that Greyson might dodge the bullet and his ventricles will not have not increased, thus no shunt this week. But if he does need it we pray we can approach it with calming peace and understanding. So send em' our way this evening and tomorrow. We'll let you all know the outcome tomorrow evening.
I had a better photo day today, so here's a few new pics.

love,

leigh, andy, grey

The good little church boy.

So this evening we thought we'd give going to church with a small baby a shot and got ready for the 5:30 service at Ada Bible Church. We gave ourselves plenty of time to get ready and made sure the little guy had a belly full of food so he'd be happy, and off we went. My whole life it just drives me crazy when i hear a baby crying in church, and then hear the parent "shhhh...shhhhing" them as if they will really listen!!! Just take the baby out!! I'd yell to myself, feeling my temperature rising!! And so now I enter into that category of my life, the parent that bravely enters the sanctuary, child in hand, and with one mission...keep this little guy quite throughout the entire service. Sure I guess it be OK if he belted out a few crys during the opening worship songs, but i was banking on him being zonked out the entire service.

And so we found a seat, near the back, at the end of the aisle, easily accessible was the exit just in case. Trust me, I wasn't gonna be that guy with the baby crying his head off, and just sitting in my seat thinking he'd shut up eventually. I thought this one through. hehe.

Let me just say that when we finally settled in and sat down, Leigh holding greyson, me sipping on that wonderful church provided coffee, it was like the Gibbs family came full circle. Let me explain...
Last september, when we found out our little guy had SB it pretty much knocked me down to nothing. This was hurt I had never experienced before, and hurt I wont ever forget. But that September at Ada Bible was a series that spoke directly to Leigh and I, to the point that we thought our life was being "bugged" and used as an example every week during the teaching. The teacher spoke of "Detours" and how these were not simply found on our Michigan roadways (Michigan roads are horrible) but also show up in real life. A perfect example would be Leigh and I's situation with greyson. We're driving along going a little over the speed limit in my 88 caprice classic and then we want to start a family and Leigh becomes pregnant, and we keep going on the road all is good, life is amazing, and then we get to 131 Northbound and find out our little guy has something called spina bifida and it will Permanently effect him for the rest of his life... This is OUR DETOUR. So we reroute and find our way around...months and months of worrying, wondering, praying, crying, researching, crying, regrouping, and finally discovering hope, peace, comfort.
So this is how we have approached our Detour in life... WE've been re-routed, our plan has changed significantly, but our ultimate destination remains the same. WE still need to raise this little guy to be the strongest, smartest, kindest, most self-suffient man we can. So the goal, or destination hasn't changed, just how we get there.

So sitting in church holding our little greyson, (we'll maybe at that time we weren;t holding him, he is a popular boy these days) we were reminded of the Detour we were on and how it seems by just having greyson here with us we;ve in someway got back on the road headed north and are crusing with the windows down again. At least for a short while, we know other detours are ahead of us but we feel we've found our way again. oh and Greyson didn't make a peep in church, much to the delight of his old man. :)

love to all,

the Gibbs Crew.

PS sorry no pictures this time. I wasn't please with how todays shot turned out, its was the lighting or something. hehehe :)

We can't get enough

So there's nothing really new to report today, but i spent a good chunk of the day taking pictures of the little guy and just want to post a couple new ones. It's so much easier to snap a shot without him being hooked up to a monitor. IT's so great to have him home!

enjoy,


love andy, leigh, & grey

Out on the town!

So it's been a few days at home with our little guy and things have been going quite well. Any sort of scheduling has been thrown out the window, in fact we had an appointment at 9 this morning, but realized that would be tricky to make happen so re-scheduled for the afternoon :) We have to add some "cushion" time in to anything we do at this point, because we are trying to figure out how long things take with a little guy. It's been much easier because its been both Leigh and I tag teaming to figure things out this week. The real test will be next week when i head back to work and leave Leigh to fend for herself. But from what I've observed, she's a natural at this mom thing and will have no problem at all.

This week has been great, we've had visitors every day, and even better every time someones come to say hi to greyson, they've also brought us food! It's been wonderful not having to think about making a meal and such. thank you to all!

So greyson has hit the town on a few occasions this week. His latest venture was to his pediatrician appointment this afternoon. The little guy did pretty good considering he had to take all his nice warm clothes off and be poked and prodded. And according to the Doc he's doing well falling right into the middle percentile with pretty much everything. His back continues to look better everyday and sure enough, he keeps getting cuter every day.

This has definitely been different than any other "vacation" i've taken off of work. But honestly have to say its been one of the best. Lounging on the couch, catching up on spring training baseball, dozing off, me and grey are getting really good at all these things! :)

So today is his 2 week birthday. It's funny how he's changed just in 2 weeks. I look at him and the pictures i took on day 1 and think "wow, this little guys getting big" I guess thats what 9 oz does to beef up a little guy.

So we just wanted to drop an update and let everyone know that we are hangin in there and fully embracing parenting. We just ask for continued prayers for greyson as he has his follow up ultrasound monday to see if his ventricles have increased. We will keep you all posted as to the outcome and how the next week will unfold.

love

andy.leigh,grey