Bella's Nursery

While I was in Guatemala, I spent a great deal of time imagining what it would be like to be home. My thoughts included the joy I would feel as I set up house in our new home in Virginia, finally putting together a nursery for the baby I've mothered for a year and a half and who has never had her own room. Actually, putting together a nursery, for me, goes back further than that. I've imagined different ideas for a nursery since I was a girl myself. As a pre-teen, I'd try to picture what it would be like to be older and married, wondered how many children I would have, what sort of house I would live in, etc. Picking out baby names and decorating the nursery was part of the dream.

For those of you who don't know me well, I was married once before. It was during that marriage that I learned of my PCOS and had an explanation for our infertility. Throughout the two years that my first husband and I were actively trying to build a family, I'd wander through baby departments and imagine what it would be like to have a "right" to be in that part of the store, to have a reason to buy those adorable outfits, to have a child to order that furniture set for. Retail therapy. Shopping like that gave me hope that someday it would be my turn.

Fast forward several years. Once the decision was made to adopt, Greg and I began spending our date nights in Baby Depot. I couldn't get enough of wandering through the aisles there, knowing it was only a matter of months until I would have a baby of my own. I also spent many, many hours online trying to find the perfect crib set for our new daughter. I wanted everything to be "just so". I had an opinion on everything. After all, I'd waited YEARS to put this room together! I had an image in my head on what Bella's room would look like. Sunny yellow walls, daisy flowers in bright colors springing up merrily behind a faux picket fence...

The future nursery needed a little re-modeling and it wasn't done by the time I left for Antigua. So, I figured Greg could do the base paint and I'd finish it up when I got home. The rest is history.

Still waiting for our house in Washington to sell, we're renting a small house. Because of the size of the house and the hopefully short period of time we'll be living in it, most of our things are still in a storage unit. Among the dining room chairs and the boxes of books are all the sweet things I'd planned to hang on the walls in Bella's room. So for me, in a very real way, this journey isn't over yet. My closure will come when I can paint walls and hang pictures and put the finishing touches on my baby's room.