Boho Inspired Nursery | Baby Girl's Pregnancy Story

Our sweet baby girl arrived promptly on her due date, and before writing out her birth story, I thought I’d take the time to record the story of how we first learned that she was on the way.

Mid-September found us in Conneticut attending a wedding. All throughout the weekend, I kept catching glimpses of myself in the mirror, and every time I did so, I’d try to adjust my clothing…I couldn’t figure out why my outfits were making me look pregnant. I had a taken a pregnancy test a week earlier (negative) so I just blamed it on the pumpkin ravioli.

At work the following Monday, however, I could not shake the overwhelming urge to take yet another pregnancy test. Now, by this point I was a Dollar Store pregnancy test junkie and was fairly sure that all the cashiers knew me by sight. This time around the feeling was so strong that I stopped at Wal-Greens to splurged on the digital test that would blink “Pregnant” and “Not Pregnant” at me and I wouldn’t be left trying to figure if in fact, there were two pink lines.

I picked up Graham and walked in the door with my little plastic bag. Michael took one look at it and asked, “You bought another pregnancy test didn’t you? Didn’t you just take one?” While my answers were “Yes,” and “Yes,” I told him that I just wanted to take it really quick while I started dinner. I set the timer for three minutes and started dinner. Now up that point, I’ve always had Michael go read the pregnancy test, or at least had us read it together so we could find out together if we were expecting or not. But he was making Graham giggle in the living room so I ran back to the bathroom just to check. Blinking up at me was “Pregnant.” It still caught me by surprise, with my response being a yelled, “Holy S#*T!!! Michael’s response back from the living room…“Nu-uh!” But I was laughing so hard, he came running, with Graham running right behind him. I’ve never seen Michael’s eyes become so large, and he wrapped me in a bear hug. Graham started laughing because I was and threw his little arms around my legs. Pretty sure we just stood and looked at each other, dazed.

And then I sent Michael to the Dollar Store for another test….just to make sure!

The nursery has lovingly been referred to as “the kids’ room” ever since we bought our home. Large, airy and bright, it’s my favorite of the bedrooms, even though the trim was a hideous shade of blue when we moved in. Having become the catch-all storage room, I knew we’d have to tackle it right away as Michael was scheduled to deploy the following January. My goals were to create a space that can be used for both little ones now and that will transition well as they grow older. I had fallen in love with this shade of green, but wasn’t sure if I could commit to something so bold. I taped up my paint chips from Home Depot and sat on the floor of the nursery for about 45 minutes, debating between shades and trying to talk myself into actually listening to my gut. It never fails…as soon as the paint is on, I start to second-guess myself…and as soon as it’s dry…I’m exclaiming how much I love it. Michael now reminds me, whenever we start a paint job, not to freak out until the paint is dry. Needless to say, I loved how it turned out.

We painted the room and installed the light fixture before Michael deployed, and then slowly over the following months, I pulled the room together. A few things I grabbed from other areas of the house, a few were hand me downs (the darling little horse was a thrifted find that my sister-in-law found years ago) and more than a few things were quarantine purchases!

Every time I enter the space now, I am humbled and overjoyed at the complete gift that these littles are in our lives. I’m learning how much I have to learn as I navigate parenthood and caring for the little hearts and souls entrusted in our care. They stretch my heart and my capacity for loving every single day and I never knew how much I needed that until I met them.