Relief and change

9.19.14-9.23.14

     Once Kaitlyn's birthday had passed, I felt relief. I felt like I could finally get excited about our current pregnancy and I had given myself "permission" to look forward to our upcoming addition without hesitation.
      The only thing that held me back from completely looking forward was the nursery. I hadn't moved anything in the nursery with the exception of taking Kaitlyn's name off the wall. Everything else was exactly as it had been the day we came home from the hospital empty handed; it waited expectantly for use in still silence.
       That week, Alex decided it was time to go through everything and redecorate. I fought him hard on it because I honestly dreaded having to go through everything. Plus, I figured we would have plenty of time because the baby wasn't due for another two months. So I procrastinated, but Alex would have none of that.
       What that meant is that we started pulling out all of the baby things and genuinely deciding whether or not they needed to stay. Alex is a minimalist, but I tend to lean towards the "if one is good, two is better" type of preparedness. It wasn't until we got to the third pack-n-play that I broke down.
        "I was so ready," I said as I let tears run down my face. "I was going to be a really good mom."
        "You are a great mom," Alex said.
        I nodded, but it didn't do much to console me. Going through all of the things that I had bought for our girl was so bittersweet. It reminded me of so many outings where I had over-bought or bought duplicates of things that I really would never use just because I was excited. It reminded me of all of our friends that had celebrated with us and showered us with gifts.

        It reminded me that we were a year behind.
        The things that we had bought last had sat unused for a year. It hurt to be reminded, even though we had just past the one year mark. It hurt to think of the showers and the random gifts that had come in the mail, even after we got home from the hospital empty handed.
        Baby gifts and condolence gifts had come at the same time. They had sat in the front room until they were opened, and some baby gifts were acknowledged with cards from the funeral home saying "thank you" for honoring Kaitlyn. It was so painful to be reminded of the absence of our daughter.
         As we looked around the changed nursery we felt reassured at our decision to not have a baby shower. We had talked about it earlier in the pregnancy and decided that we wouldn't tell anyone the gender until the birth just to keep people (in their sweet, well-meaning ways) from buying us presents that we really didn't need. It was hard for people to understand that, but it was what was best for us until the baby got here safely.