Reclaiming THAT Room

We all have one.

You know.

THE Room.

The "future" nursery.

The room that's filled with all your hopes and dreams, and, for some, the collection of yet-unused baby paraphernalia.

I've had one in every house we've lived in for the last eight years, six houses in all.

In some houses, the room was used as an office. In others, a guest bedroom. Still, underneath the trappings of utility, I knew what the room's TRUE purpose was. I waited patiently for the day when I could paint, put up the crib, and hang my baby's name on the wall.

Our new house is a four-bedroom. We converted both upstairs bedrooms into guest rooms, and turned the "formal" dining room into my husband's office. That left the small, first floor bedroom right next to the master empty.

I stored some teacher items in there for a while, but I knew. This, THIS ROOM, was finally going to be my baby's room. After learning that I was pregnant again, I began sketching out a room plan. I looked for inspiration online. My mom and I picked out paint, bought some shelves. I moved all the boxes into other rooms, leaving room for the chair and ottoman that I planned to re-cover, and the dresser that I planned to re-paint.

When I was pregnant, it brought me great comfort to sit in this room. The room that was so often avoided in the past became my favorite place to relax in, to dream in. It made my baby feel REAL somehow. I sat in there and talked to him, even read stories once or twice. I knew exactly where I was going to put the crib and the changing table. I was ready.

And then.

For several days afterward, I kept the door to the room closed. I couldn't bring myself to go in there, to see in my mind's eye all those plans that were no longer necessary, to gaze at the tiny onesies that I had finally given in and bought for my husband on his first Father's Day.

In my heart, though, it didn't feel right to shut the room up. I didn't want to close it off, as so many previous rooms had been. I am tired of having an empty room just waiting to be filled.

And so this weekend, I started unpacking. I moved my teacher things into the closet. I brought out the paint that I had chosen. I told Mo of my plans to create a "teacher work room," a place where I can spread out and do all my crafty elementary-type things without destroying our dining room table. This week, I am done waiting. I am going to transform my would-be nursery into a haven of construction paper, die-cut letters, and tri-fold boards. I'm going to give myself an equal space of my own in this way-too-big house. I am, quite purposefully, refusing to give in, refusing to close off another piece of myself because of the overwhelming disappointment and frustration that has been thrust upon us.

I know it's not going to be easy. Every paint stroke is going to remind me of what SHOULD be. Every step of assembling those shelves will be filled with memories of what was, and what I hoped would be. And yet, its not as if I could ever forget.

Closing that door feels like giving up...and I'm just not ready to do that. I need a break, yes. We will not be doing any more treatments until January, at least. We need time to heal, time to figure out what's causing all of this to happen. I need time to focus on non-fertility related things for a while. In the meantime, though, I'm reclaiming that room -- and maybe a little bit of myself in the process.