Packing Up the Nursery

Last summer I went to visit friends from high school, and we went out to lunch. It was fun to see everyone, although not so fun to be the only woman not a mom at the table when the conversation inevitably went to PTA, choosing a house based on school district, public vs private school, birthday parties, etc. etc. etc. I may have felt a little fish-out-of-water and irritated about it (but not upset with them, this is a commonality, this is the stuff their lives are made of), so when someone asked, "How is adoption going?" I may have answered like so: "It's slow, actually, and hard, and sometimes you feel like you could be a parent any second and you feel real hopeful and sometimes you wonder how you would go about returning a nursery." Ha HA ha ha ha, gallows humor for the win.

Well, except here we are a year later, facing a nursery we no longer have a use for, more than two years into a failed experiment in family building. I don't really feel comfortable with returning things since so much was bought for us (and that window is likely closed, given that our showers were over a year and a half ago). So we decided to box everything up into tubs and get it into the back room this weekend, and look into places to donate to.

It's going to be real fun to answer the question, "What did you do over Memorial Day weekend?" tomorrow. "Oh, I don't know. I dismantled my dreams. You?"

We found a place that sets up women who have decided to keep pregnancies they weren't initially excited for through my mom, and there is a woman who is due in July with a little girl who will likely get most of the gear we have to donate. The person who runs it is coming tomorrow to get everything, to take the sum total of our hopes and dreams (and everyone else's hopes and dreams for us) out of the house and give it to someone else who can actually use it, who will truly benefit from and get some joy out of everything that caused me so much sorrow when we packed it all up yesterday.

Such as putting all those tiny, rolled, washed-and-ready-to-wear onesies into a compact sterilite tub. Well, not all of them. I kept a couple for some unknown reason, maybe proof that this actually happened, that once upon a time we believed we could manifest this tiny human into being.

So many cute little things that we couldn't fill.

The tiniest ones are on the bottom. So many I bought during IVF, in fits of hope and magical thinking that buying onesies would bring a child to us, show the Universe that we were serious about this whole thing. Huh.

That wasn't the hardest one though. Strangely enough, peeling off the owl and tree wall decals was the worst. It literally felt like I was ripping a newly formed scab off a very deep wound and the pain was almost physical. Those decals really made the nursery LOOK like a tiny person's room, and now there's just this one little corner left with lovebirds that I felt I could leave as a sort of nod to what the room was once going to be.

Nothing but blank wall space now. I don't know if you see it, but I think it looks as bereft as I feel.

All that's left of the decals. I want to find something to go above the two birds, but I just don't know what. Probably something mildly snarky. Or a heart. Or both.

It's hard, so hard to see all these absences where so much hope once lived.

We did move the cubes into the reading nook, and the little owl rug that we bought in Southwest Harbor, Maine, two years ago.

Worked perfectly.

Hey, little owl(s).

The dresser went into my closet, replacing little rickety cube things that held bras and pjs and yoga pants and swimsuits with something more solid and grown-up, even though it was meant to hold tiny things.

The room is pretty empty now, minus the indentations in the carpet where the crib and dresser used to be, and the real fancy piece of plywood and sawhorse desk setup I'm typing on right now. We did order a desk, which hopefully comes in less than two weeks, that fits perfectly where the cubes used to be and is an L-shaped thing with a bookcase along the side so there's storage and drawers and surface area but compact enough for this tiny room that is being refashioned into my office.

Also, I bought a beige chaise lounge online today. I think it would be nice to have a little reading/napping spot in here, by the window. I had my heart set on a futon so it could also hold a guest, but apparently I can't find one that will fit in the limited length we have and through the door clearance that also doesn't look like a piece of crap. Oh well, a chaise lounge will be super swanky and luxurious feeling. Maybe I'll get into a cocktail dress and lay on it with a martini in my hand. Regardless, the setup in here will be different than anything that's been here before, which will feel good. Freeing.

Lots of clearing things away. Lots of moving stuff out. Lots of feeling like there's a giant hole of emptiness inside me. For some reason, the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes runs on repeat in my head (alternating with "Everything Is Awesome," which is mildly concerning as that's my anthem for lost marbles, although I'm replacing it with "Everything is awful...everything is cool when you're part of a team, everything is awful...when you've lost your whole dream..."). The whole "What happens to a dream deferred" bit bothers me, because it's not deferred. It's gone. But I feel like stinking meat, like I might explode. It is definitely, definitely a heavy load.

It's good to get this done, to clear things out and get them to people who truly can use them, who might not have what they need without this massive donation. But man, doing it all so quickly sure does give me whiplash. It makes me feel sad. And angry. And like I'm swimming in disbelief that this is where we ended up. Even if it is the right decision for so many reasons, even if it allows us to let go of this dream we've been chasing at so much personal cost, it hurts so much to physically let go of all the things that represented all the hope we had that we'd get that call and be chosen and finally become the parents we wanted so badly to be. The grief, frankly, is overwhelming. But it will not be this raw always. Soon our house will look differently and we will continue planning our vacation and we will start seeing more of the positive aspects of leaving this struggle behind. But now? Now it sucks.

Sorry, not a microblog at all, I guess I was backed up from not writing in two weeks. If you want to read more #Microblog Mondays, go here and enjoy!