Max has always been an early riser and me? Not so much. Through seven years of knowing him, and two and a half years married, I have started to become one though. During our pregnancy, I loved waking up to the feeling of "what are all the things we want/need to get done today?!" - which is such a Max-ism. He is the type of person that has to have purpose in the day, to accomplish things every day. He betters me because of that.
I started putting Hudson's nursery together at 16 weeks, the week we found out it was a him. Leading up to it, I could only really think of girl names but could only picture a boy nursery and I had a very specific one in my mind. You see, I had two songs for my baby that I sang leading up to our gender reveal, Who Loves You Pretty Baby by The Four Seasons and Wagon Wheel by Darius Rucker. One was for a baby girl, one was for a baby boy. Wagon Wheel was the nursery inspiration for a boy. However, so much of it stayed in my mind because we had a pending renovation coming up and our contractor told us we would need to move everything out of the room. We decided to wait and assemble the crib once construction was complete so the date we had set to do this was for June 6, because I plan everything and I had a running timeline by week of what we were going to do. We planned to assemble his white crib with dark brown accents that would pop against the dark brown hardwood floors and newly painted Bleeker Beige wall, putting all other furniture items we already had in place. On June 13, while Max was at his brother's wedding in Wisconsin, that I wouldn't be able to travel for, my two lifelong best friends would slumber party with me and we would hang things in the nursery, adding all the finishing touches. My mom had all three of us early so I wanted to be prepared at least a month in advance in case he came early.
Every day leading up to May 26, the day our world shattered, we were nesting and planning in some way, some how.
We came home from the hospital the afternoon of May 27. I went through labor, gave birth to our son but left the hospital and came home without our baby. Hudson would never be in his perfect room that was all ready in my mind. I would never sleepily enter the new hallway from our master suite area, the hallway that used to be a needless porch that I was calling Hudson's Hallway, into his room where the new door was added to rock him, feed him and soothe him in the middle of the night.
When we came home from the hospital, workers were there. The 24 hours leading up to that point were a whirlwind and we had not yet told our contractor what had happened. They were working hard to hit their deadline of Thursday, May 28 (the next day). The deadline we had given them because friends would be arriving that night. The friends that would be hosting Hudson's baby shower on Saturday, May 30.
I sat in the car crying while Max went around to the front of the house to tell our contractor, Joe, what had happened. He was devastated and brokenhearted for us. We specified that we wanted them to keep working so we could have it completed on time so we were not still in chaos the remainder of that week. He pulled his men for a break so I could enter my house in peace. I came into my new beautiful kitchen that was without the plastic tarps for the first time. When we bought the house, we did so knowing we would be able to create the kitchen of our dreams. I had carefully designed it with the look and materials I knew would create the warmth and mood for us to enjoy cooking for ourselves and our little family. Upon entering its completed state, I immediately resented the whole space. I looked at that white farmhouse sink. We had debated double basin or single basin for a week. In the end, we decided single basin. After all, that would be so much easier to bathe Hudson in. I went over to that sink and I wanted to break it. I stared at it and hated it because we would never bathe him in it.
With Max's hand in mine, we silently walked into his room. From the time we bought the house, we referred to that room as the nursery. It was a pale blue color but I knew regardless if it were a boy or girl, we would repaint it something neutral. The room had just been painted and the new doorway from Hudson's room, into Hudson's Hallway, into our master was done. The wood floors had just been stained. I stood there, staring at the shell of a room and hit the floor sobbing. Never before had I heard the kind of sounds that were coming out of me. Max dropped next to me and we just held each other. Rocking back and forth, crying for our child we had to say goodbye to a few hours before, in the room we couldn't wait to bring him into. I opened the closet door and grabbed at the little white Kissy Kissy gown with blue pin dots, with a tiny matching hat, that I had purchased for him to come home in the hospital in. I wept into it, you were supposed to come home, to this house, to this room, in this outfit. And now that would never happen.
On Thursday and Friday, we were in distraction mode. We were surrounded by family and friends at all times. The workers met their deadline, finishing the last of the final touches for our renovation project to be complete. A deep cleaning crew was in on Thursday. We needed to be kept busy so we continued nesting. Our family members helped us stain and add boards to our rustic pallet headboard wall that we now needed to be a bit larger to fit the king-sized bed we had purchased 5 days before. We went "just to look" and see the Memorial Day sales, but ended up getting a new and larger mattress as we prepared for our growing family. My mom and mother-in-law helped me build a new king-sized fabric headboard with nail heads to go between the pallet wall and the bed. That night, Max's brother and some of our friends came to help us move everything back into our kitchen and put furniture into what was supposed to be Hudson's room.
That night, I had almost forgotten that we had this loss. For a little while I felt normal, I could smile, even laugh, and then it took a really crappy reminder to let it flood back. We were just shy of living in our house for 1 year. The family before us had a 2 year old and a baby. The fridge stayed when they moved and we didn't use the shelves in the door of the freezer often. I went to grab one of our frozen beer mugs that had sat in there unused for months. When I reached in to grab one from a shelf, I felt around only to find a frozen bag of breast milk that had been left behind. REALLY? I didn't know how to react so I sarcastically dealt with it before chunking it in the trash. The irony was that my milk started coming in just a few hours before. I was in pain all bound up in ace bandage wraps and a sports bra with cabbage (seriously, modern medicine hasn't found something less archaic than cabbage leaves on your boobs already?!), severely uncomfortable and pissed at my body for not knowing there wasn't a baby to feed. Then there I was, holding a frozen bag of another mom's breast milk for her living baby. Pretty sure I muttered some choice words that are not appropriate to blast on the world wide web.
For the last six weeks, I go into his room and piddle around. Healthy or unhealthy, I don't care. I've re-arranged it three times. I've continued my search for the perfect ottoman to accompany the rocker and just switched out the one I had with a new one a week ago. I didn't put up the peg board but used some of the items I'd found to decorate his changing table dresser. I've organized the drawers of his little things. I hung his monogram and a framed picture of his foot prints. Just this past weekend, I finally took the changing pad out of the Zulily box and put the Aden and Anais white cover with beige stars on it. I knew it, those stars did match the wall color and the crib sheet set perfectly! Sometimes I just open the closet and stare at the outfits we had accumulated, arranging and re-arranging by size, then by season, then by color. My boss had told me that after every doctor's appointment, she would treat herself by getting a little present for her baby. I started to do the same with a new little outfit, a soft lovey, a pacifier, or little socks. Each time we would go to the drugstore or grocery store, we would come home with a box of diapers just to help stock up. Those are all organized in the closet and I can't bring myself to return them.
Now, while I emotionally anticipate the approaching due date, I have no more nesting to do. Part of me is antsy like I should be doing something, I should be preparing for something. Then the other part of me doesn't want to do a thing, knowing I've done all I can do to create the perfect home for the son that will never experience it.
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