The non-existent nursery

We have a spare room in our house. For the first few years, it was used as extra storage. There was junk in there and old furniture. Then, we cleaned it out and it became our dogs' room. We put their blankets in there and cleaned all of the other stuff out. And it just stayed the dogs room with the intention that it was someday going to be a nursery.

With every pregnancy, I would go into the spare room and see the empty space and I would envision the color of the walls. I knew we wouldn't paint pink or blue because we decided not to find out the gender early. I knew we wouldn't paint pastel yellow or green because those were overdone. I found some crib bedding online that I really liked. It was ABC, 123 themed and had little owls in like an aqua and tan color. And there was some orange or peach. Those would be the colors of the walls. The crib would be a natural color wood or white. I pictured a rocker in the corner by the window and that is where I would rock our baby, by the light of the moon and the twinkling of the stars and I would say nursery rhymes and sing little songs to put him or her to sleep. The rhymes and songs that my mom used to say to me:

CiCi my playmate, come out and play with me
Bring your dolly three
Climb up my apple tree
Slide down my rainbow into my cellar door
And we'll be jolly friends forever more
Shut the door

I would go in there, in the middle of the night, when the baby woke up crying and rock him back to sleep, or maybe stay up for hours with a screaming baby because they don't always go back to sleep so easily. And maybe the dogs would be curled up on the big area rug next to the crib, you know for protection.

There would be a shelf on the wall with the first ultra sound picture and the first picture of the three of us in the hospital together. And on the opposite wall would be big hanging letters spelling out his or her name.

I used to imagine all of that. And I never did anything with the room because I didn't want to put a lot of work into just to have to re-do it all when I finally got pregnant and had a baby. And now, there is no reason for it to stay empty; there is no reason to keep imagining that nursery.

After my miscarriage was confirmed last week, that nursery I had been imagining was replaced with an idea for a more realistic guest room. I decided that I couldn't stand to look at that empty room any more and I needed to start decorating it right away. I had to do something productive with all of the rage and sadness and grief that I was feeling, so I went shopping. I went out and bought a big grey area rug and picked out a silvery-lavender color for the walls and dark purple curtains. And I decided that instead of a crib, I would buy a futon.