She's CRAFTY ..... and she's just my type

So I'm not sure if I've mentioned it yet ..... but I've spent a lot of time in bed lately.

As I lay here day after day I often find myself falling into the tried-and-true Kristi habit of worrying endlessly and obsessing over scary pregnancy things. So to keep my brain occupied, lately I've been working on little projects when I feel well enough to get out of bed. Don't worry ... I don't go far! Just to the little card-table in the corner of my bedroom where I've set up my sewing machine.

My first project were the curtains I made for Jamin's nursery:

Once I started sewing again, the crafty bug really took over and I decided to try some new things. I made this blue chenille liner for Jamin's laundry basket. It matches his room perfectly!

Then I switched my focus from room decor over to clothes. I started making fun appliqued onesies, which was a totally new thing for me. I'm so impressed with how cute they turned out, and I can't wait to see my little guy wearing them!

I even made some girl onesies for my babysitter, Brandi, who is expecting a daughter, Savannah, just 9 days after my own due date. It was fun to finally work with some pink fabric!

The next thing I really want to learn is to sew baby pants. I wish I had time to try it out before Jamin gets here, but at this point I'm struggling to wrap up all my projects in preparation for next week's induction .... so tackling NEW things at this point seems unwise. Oh well. I will teach myself to do it one day! :)

Divine Design

I am happy to finally report that the Room of Heartbreak no longer exists. It has been transformed into the sweet baby blue nursery that it was supposed to be in 2006.

The sadness and disappointment that used to flood me every time I looked in that room is now replaced with nervous excitement. And the best part: we keep the door OPEN.

Here are a few before-and-after pics so you can get a feel for the transformation. I wish I had taken some pictures of the room before I cleaned it out .... back when there were boxes stacked 4 feet high and 8 feet deep .... so you could fully grasp how far we've come. Oh well .... I probably would be embarrased to share them if I did have photographic evidence of how horrific it was!

View from the doorway:

Dresser/Changing Table:

Snuggle Corner:

A few of my favorite details:

The other night I sat in this blue chair for about an hour after everyone was asleep and our house was quiet. I felt eager to meet Jamin and I thought about how many long hours I have ahead of me, God willing, feeding and rocking him in that chair. But even in that moment of excitement and expectancy, my mind trailed off to missing Isaac. I couldn't help but think how drastically different life would be if he had lived. It's a surreal battle of emotions, knowing that I would do anything to have him here, and yet knowing with equal certainty that if he were here Jamin would probably not exist. It's hard to explain.

I do feel a big weight lifted now that the room is finally finished. Well ......... 99% finished. I waited so long to get started on it, so it turned out to be a huge project crammed into a small amount of time. Many thanks to my husband for the hours of sanding and painting, my sister for helping to hang the curtains and pictures, and my parents of painting the "blue primer" and for their good sense of humor.

Relief!

Finally: I can catch my breath!

Had my weekly appointment with Dr. Garcia today. He took a Fetal Fibronectin sample and sent it off to the lab. I held my breath for 6 full hours until the nurse called with the results: NEGATIVE! Praise the Lord for that!!! I feel so much better knowing I can relax a bit since chances of something happening within the next 14 days is small. Dr. Garcia said he would most likely repeat the test every 2weeks from now on just to keep a super-close eye on things.

They also did my glucose screening, which required chugging that lovely orange-syrup nonesense and then more needles. Yick! I should get those results next week.

YAY for finally catching a break! :) I celebrated by doing something I swore I'd never do: I created a baby registry. Online of course, can't venture out to a store - doctor's orders! But seriously this feels like a huge step for me. I am still feeling very hesitant about the thought of actually having a baby shower - I've had two sweet offers to host but honestly I still feel really wierd about that and I'm not sure whether or not I'll accept. Mostly because it's a second baby and so that feels selfish in a way, but also because I guess I haven't fully let myself trust that we are truly going to have a healthy baby at the end of all this.

Even still, feels like progress to me. Baby steps.

Major Breakthrough

Today marks 22weeks. Getting this far with my sanity in tact has required quite a feat of mental gymnastics. Mostly it's meant completely distancing myself from the baby and consciously not allowing myself to bond with him. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that, but it is the truth.

I am a planner by nature. The type A-personality, control-freak kind of person who over-plans and over-analyzes every big event in life. With my other pregnancies, I indulged in all the fun planning practically 10 minutes after peeing on the pregnancy test! I bought every baby book that Borders carried, poured through all the baby name websites searching for just the right choice, researched every detail about breastfeeding, excitedly created baby registries, and spent endless hours designing the perfect nursery.

With Gracie, all the planning and preparation paid off. With Isaac, not so much. Coming home to a room of baby things when you no longer have a baby ..... well that's just torture. It's been over two years, and I haven't been able to even *look* at that room since then. Staring at the empty crib sitting there, and envisioning how it should have looked with the perfect shade of blue on the walls, the softest chenille bumper pads and rich silk drapes .... it was all more than my heart could handle. So, I did what any weak-minded grieving mother would do: I shut the door and simply refused to deal with it. Every now and then we would open the door, just long enough to throw in a box of outgrown clothes waiting to be donated, or an empty crate we needed to dispose of. It became a quasi-storage room really.

But always with the door closed.

Since becoming pregnant again, I have instinctively made no plans. People will excitedly ask me things like, "have you picked out a name?", "are you gonna paint the room blue?", "when will you have a baby shower?" ..... each time I can only smile and shrug my shoulders. No plans. No names. No nursery decor. No showers. I simply can not bring myself to do it. I am too afraid.

But something changed last night. I couldn't sleep. I literally laid in bed, wide awake, ALL NIGHT long. My brain was running a million miles an hour and I couldn't figure out a way to turn it off. I was overcome with a feeling of guilt for refusing to bond with an innocent baby. *My* baby. And suddenly an urgent need flooded me: a need to make up for lost time. I laid there, desperate to fall asleep, until about 5:00am. At that point I finally gave up trying. I quietly tip-toed out of bed, walked across the hall to the dreaded room, and opened the door.

Then, I did something even more heroic: I sat down right in the middle of those 4-foot stacks of boxes, and I began cleaning. You should have seen James' face when he woke up a few hours later for work and found me there.

For nearly twelve hours I have sorted, organized, and disposed of the mess .... all the while convincing myself that it's way past time I get over it. It was a bit like a 12-hour pep talk inside my head: I can't let fear rob me of any more of my pregnancy ... This is supposed to be a joyous and magical experience ... I have to believe that we're going to get a happy ending this time.

After much pondering, I've decided that this is truly a leap of faith. And today I take my first little hop.

By the end of the day, I had packed up TWELVE very heavy boxes and bags of things to donate. By some miracle, I managed to drag them all downstairs and load them in my car without going into pre-term labor. Then Gracie and I drove down to Goodwill and passed it all off.

I'm now feeling quite exhausted, having done all this activity on zero hours of sleep. But I'm also feeling incredibly relieved. Today I've purged equal amounts of material junk and emotional junk.

It feels good.