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Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Until this weekend, we had done little work on the nursery, no more than what we did about this time last year when I was trying to distract myself from the adoption wait by buying cutesy baby things.
Then, when we thought G was going to be our son, we squeezed the nursery stuff to one side of the room and set up a full-size bed, with a pretty walnut Eastlake headboard I bought for $95 at a long-ago antique sale on the square. We weren’t confident enough to take down the crib and changing table, or to put sheets on the bed, but it was nice to have the bed there taking up space, like a placeholder for him until he came home.
When it became clear G’s home lay elsewhere, we didn’t immediately take down his bed. Even when we found out, a few short weeks later, about my pregnancy, we left the nursery the way it was. Changing anything felt like tempting fate, and besides, we were still hoping our facilitator would find us a child to be a big brother or sister for our baby, and then we’d need that bed after all.
Back in early November, we told our facilitator that our cut-off date, the point at which we would activate a nine-month pause in our contract, would be February 1, because we felt adopting an older child after that point wouldn’t be fair to said child. Less than four months of bonding time before a new baby came in and sucked up much of the attention just didn’t seem enough.
Until then, D and I had an unspoken agreement – we didn’t mention the full-size bed or the nursery. I only went in there to deposit new purchases, and D mostly didn’t go in at all. In the intervening three months, we heard barely a word from our facilitator – guess it was a slow time for older child adoptions, and my pregnancy made us an unlikely choice for expecting moms.
On February 1, I sent an e-mail to our coordinator about pausing our contract, and on February 5 we received a certified letter saying it had been done and that our contract will resume in November 2010, if we choose to resume it, at which point we’ll have 6 months, 16 days left to do what we couldn’t in almost 17 months.
The thought of starting all over again with so little time left is disheartening to say the least. Not to mention all the work we’ll have to redo – updating our home study, redoing our fingerprints and other clearances, and writing/photographing/arranging a whole new profile to include the addition to our family – and all the fees and other expenses we’ll have to repay. All while caring for an infant and surviving another frantic Halloween season.
But for now, we are trying not to think about all that too much, let alone make any decisions regarding it. We are embracing the fact that our lives are simpler, at least for a little while. Barring unexpected problems, we can map out the next 17 weeks with some level of accuracy – in 8 days, another doctor’s appointment, in 3.5 weeks the third trimester, in 5 weeks another blood sugar test and a 3D ultrasound, in 8-10 weeks a baby shower or two, and then washing the tiny clothes, prepping the cloth diapers, putting a sheet on the crib mattress, childbirth classes, freaking out, and then the countdown and will-this-baby-never-come and then, some time around June 7, she’ll be here and our lives will be much less simple, for always.
And all of that begins by moving on. So this weekend we took down G’s bed and put it in the attic, where it is waiting for our daughter to grow into it. Honestly, I wasn’t too devastated to see it go. It helps that we heard from G’s mother last week for the first time since October, and she says he’s doing great with his dad, who – despite his shortcomings in the past – is shaping up to be a first-rate father now. She said G is happy and healthy, and hearing that, I felt like the final puzzle piece dropped into place. If he is happy, I can accept that he was never ours; I can accept that bed was never his.
The room is just our baby’s now, no ghosts or might-have-beens.
After we took out the bed, we rearranged the furniture in the nursery (D suggested we switch the crib and wardrobe so the crib would be against a less drafty interior wall), moved the rug into a new position, set up the new clock radio/CD player/iPod player we got for Christmas from Mom, took turns sitting in the glider, and hung a few clothes in the closet.
It doesn’t look like much yet. The floor needs sweeping; the artwork, the elephant-shaped chalkboard, and the mobile need hanging; the glider needs new cushions; and the extra stuff (like that vintage icebox) needs relocating.
Most of all, it just needs some color and interest, because right now, it is Dullsville.
But I’m working on it. For example, I did this project tonight:
I bought some plain white MDF letters from Michael’s craft store and turned them all cute with spray glue and some coordinating scrapbook papers. I think I’m going to hang them over the wardrobe in the nursery.
So the room is on it’s way. There is space for playing and sleeping and diapering and reading and feeding and learning. And already the room feels like a new, happy place, instead of the place where dreams go to die. I can go in there now and think hopeful thoughts. I can look at the baby’s shoes (eek, she already has six pairs!) and think about how these tiny feet nudging my insides will soon fit in them. I can listen to the “Lullabies” playlist I’ve been building for years on my iPod, and shed a tear or 20 of happiness instead of bitterness.
Now if only I can get D to take down the taxidermy deer head.
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P.S. Maybe you’ve guessed the baby’s name? There will be more about that in another post.
Oh, I love the name Ruby. Please tell me her middle name will be Sue! I’m from the South too, that sounds like a good southern name :-)
I like the name Ruby. Children should have names that they can grow into and are easy to spell. I am a retired teacher and can tell you unusual names are only cute to the parents.
We have a agreement that deer heads are in the office. I have four in here with me right now.
I’m sure Ruby will like her room. My granddaughter had Noah’s ark theme until she got older and now at 5 her room is the princess room.
I’m so glad for you & just wanted to say I think the name Ruby is wonderful-I had a manager a few years ago named Ruby who was a truly nice person (as well as tall, blond & stylish)I’m totally impressed by the mobile you’ve made & I’d love that elephant chalkboard in my room-Congrats on the baby to be born- Dee
How exciting!! A former pastor of ours is married to a wonderful lady named Ruby Bea. Her name is sweet, like she is. :)
OK, I posted a comment the other day but it’s not here?????
I love the name Ruby. I also think you should post a pic of your crib.
Maybe you deleted my post because I included my blog name? I only did that because the blog is password protected so no one can access it anyways.
Thanks everyone! Emily, I didn’t delete your comment – just now I checked for it in moderated comments and spam and didn’t see it there either. Don’t know what happened! :)
Here’s a partial pic of the crib: http://www.flickr.com/photos/81441889@N00/4344549253/
It’s just full of junk right now and not looking cute yet. :)
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