Premature Nesting

Is nesting before you're even pregnant, crazy? If so, consider me a raging lunatic.

Before we decided that we were ready to start trying, I've been dreaming up how I'd want to setup the nursery. I thought about where I'd put the crib, what colors and theme we'd want, all the way down to how I'd organize the changing table. Since almost all of my friends have had babies since we started trying, I've been listening, collecting tid-bits and even adding items to a baby registry as I learn how much they've helped everybody else. I've been collecting and absorbing as much information as I possibly can. All in an attempt to be as ready as possible.

I feel crazy but I also don't want to miss anything, so I've been squirreling away items into a registry in hopes that I'll actually get to have a baby shower. Is having a registry before you're even pregnant crazy? Probably. At this point, I don't think anything is crazy. Honestly, I can't even imagine what it would be like to have my own baby shower. I've planned countless showers, been the one sitting next to the glowing pregnant mama, recording all the gifts and ooohhingg and awwwhhhing over each tiny onesie, only to sob on my drive home and sit in my nursery convincing myself that one day it will be me. I've taken mental notes on everything. Regardless of the gender, I've decided on a theme and have kept almost everything gender neutral. I hate surprises so would obviously want to know the gender of our future child as soon as scientifically possible but either way I knew I'd want a neutral room. Neutrals are calming to me and I thrive in environments that are serene and in no way busy with colors.

As of right now, our nursery is painted, the crib is ready and my registry has over 400 items in it. Adam worked so hard, hand making the shiplap that I had to have but we couldn't afford to buy outright. He hand cut each piece of wood and assembled it himself. I felt crazy asking him to shiplap the walls and assemble a crib when I wasn't even pregnant. But for me, I want to be ready. I don't want to have to think about our nursery being disheveled or a crib needing to be assembled in the middle of focusing on keeping a pregnancy. I want to spend my pregnant days focusing on me, my baby and my husband. So I've been preparing the only way I know how.

As hard as it is to walk past my little rainbow on our nursery door knowing that this room has been empty the last three years, it gives me hope that one day that room will be filled with chaos and a crying baby. I walk by that little rainbow on our door every day and say "I am manifesting my baby and will be ready when it comes." It has been my mantra for the last year. I have to be ready. I have to keep telling myself that room will be filled with dirty diapers, laundry and a mess of toys if it's the hardest thing I ever have to do. I have to keep telling myself that all of the struggle will be worth it.

I've posted in support groups asking if anybody else is nesting and most people have responded that its too hard. Most people in this journey have stopped nesting. I understand why and some days I think I'm absolutely crazy for buying a bassinette in the middle of an IUI cycle thinking this has to be the one that sticks. Only to find our cycle failed, and have to unpack the bassinette anyway. Then I get hit with the what ifs. What if I never have a baby and have to sell all this crap I've collected? What if the crib is never used and the room just ends up a storage space? The what ifs have lead me down some really dark alleys, and thoughts that I couldn't believe even crossed my mind. As long as I've lived in those dark spaces, I've spent the other days day dreaming of the possibilities. What if's have turned into what can be and what can be is the only thing keeping me going.

Don't get me wrong, there are days, even weeks, where I want to give up. Where I want to throw in the towel and just surrender to the fact that I could be that women that never has a baby of her own. The dog mom that just throws herself into everybody else's baby, trying to grasp at any feeling of being a mother, being needed. There are days when my veins are blown out in my arms from being stabbed every two days and I don't think they're going to hold up to the next blood draw. There are weeks of having to wear a pad all day even though I'm not bleeding because the suppositories are so messy they ruin my only good underwear left. There are days when the meds make me feel pregnant, but the tests are telling me I'm not. There are days when I can't imagine getting out of bed, or I sob uncontrollably at a song about a shotgun wedding that I've heard a million times before but for some reason, that day it hit me differently. But then there are days when I realize I can. When I can get up and when I can tell myself that this appointment is one step closer to our dream, that I can do it one more time. What's one more time? I can handle one more blood draw, or one more new nurse that hasn't seen my parts but is about to. One more test, one more medication, one more cycle. One step closer to being parents. This is just preparing me for motherhood, I can do it.

Hope is the only thing keeping me going. Keeping me researching breast pumps and adding them to our registry because I tell myself I'm going to use it eventually. I will be ready. Ready for my baby, blood or not. I will keep nesting because it's the only thing from keeping me out the of darkness. That little rainbow on our door is the only thing that keeps me from shutting it for good.

That little rainbow is holding all the hope I need to keep going. I will get my rainbow, one day I will be the one not taking the notes at the baby shower but swooning over the little onesies. I will have my turn. One day. I won't give up until the day has come that I hold my baby in my arms and be able to say it was all worth it. I will have earned that baby and I will never take a second of being a mother for granted.

I don't see any shame in finding your own way to grieve through this journey. Whether you nest or not. Do what you need to do to get through today, and tomorrow, and this cycle. There is no right way to make it through this, just make sure you make it through.

Love your soul,

Skye