Changing the nursery

It's been a rough week. We decided to redo your nursery, baby Stella, to get ready for your baby sister. Even as I type it…it sounds silly. Get ready for your baby sister? Aren't we already ready? Didn't we just do this? For you? The answer is yes, we did just get ready for you and we're still ready. We literally have everything a newborn baby could possibly need. We're just missing the baby. So how are we supposed to "get ready" and prepare for your baby sister, when nothing needs done? It's just another challenge on my heart.

The decision to redo your nursery didn't come lightly. Why take apart a perfectly beautiful nursery, decorated and put together with so much love, so many dreams, so many hopes? A nursery that has never been used. But it was made for YOU, baby Stella, and you aren't coming home to use it. Doesn't your baby sister deserve her own perfectly beautiful nursery, designed just for her? We decided yes, she does. And with your help and guidance, we moved everything out and got it ready to paint. It was difficult and bittersweet, but we felt we were doing the right thing. Then, the last thing your daddy did was take your name off the wall. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. It's over. It's really over. You're gone, you're never coming back. The nursery is no longer yours. I obviously know you've been gone, but taking your name off the wall just seemed so final. So, "time to move on," just like that. But you'll always be our first baby girl. It was always your nursery first. Thanks for letting us share it with your sister.

Then today we decided to go to Buy Buy Baby. I used to LOVE going to there while pregnant with you. We had some coupons, and I thought let's just go find some stuff to buy for your baby sister. Again, we need nothing, but I guess I was trying to satisfy my "need" to prepare and get ready for baby girl. It turned into an uncomfortable trip. We wandered around trying to force ourselves to buy things we don't really need, while trying to avoid the sales people asking us about our registry (which we obviously don't have, because we don't NEED ANYTHING). By the time we left, with nothing, I was in tears. What's the point? We don't need anything. And if we do, we don't know what, because we've never had a living baby before. And then my mind goes to the darkest place of all…we shouldn't buy anything more, because what if this baby dies too.

29 weeks pregnant. 8 weeks left. 59 days to go. We pray for peace, courage, and strength to make it that far.

Stella's perfect nursery

Baby girl's nursery-on it's way to perfect