For the Baby I Prayed For: A room created from hope, heartbreak, and one very long-awaited miracle.

I have decorated a lot of rooms over the years, but I don't think any room has ever meant quite as much to me as Gigi's nursery. It wasn't because it was the fanciest room I had done, or because I found the perfect furniture, or because I spent an absurd amount of time obsessing over tiny details. It mattered because, for a while, I truly believed I would never get to make it.

For four years, Aaron and I hoped for another baby. Every month brought the same cycle of hope and disappointment, and after a while it became exhausting in a way that is difficult to explain unless you have been through it. I had saved all of Trent's baby things because I was so sure there would eventually be another baby who would use them. We even had a nursery sitting there, waiting for a baby who just wasn't coming.

During the summer of 2019, I found out that my endometriosis had returned. I had dealt with endometriosis from the time I was 16 until I was 26, and those years had been absolute hell, but this time my symptoms were so different that the diagnosis completely blindsided me. The doctor explained that if the endometriosis had grown into the uterine muscle, I would not be able to get pregnant without IVF, and even IVF came with no guarantees.

I was devastated. By that point, I had spent four years saving baby things and walking past an empty nursery on the way to Trent's room, and eventually the room itself became painful. I was tired of looking into a space I had kept waiting for a baby who might never come. That summer, when I was probably at my lowest point, I finally gave away all of the baby things I had carefully stored for years and converted the nursery into a playroom. It felt practical, but if I am being truthful, it also felt like admitting defeat.

We scheduled surgery for December 2019. The plan was for me to recover, get my iron levels back to normal for several months, and then Aaron and I would start trying again sometime the following summer. It was a sensible plan, which apparently meant Gigi wanted nothing to do with it. Two months after my surgery, I found out I was pregnant.

After four years of disappointment, after giving away the baby things, and after finally turning the nursery into something else because I couldn't bear to keep waiting, we were going to have another baby.

There is a saying I have always loved: "Don't give up five minutes before the miracle." I had used it before, but Gigi made me understand it differently. I had gotten about as close as I could get to accepting that this part of my life might not happen, and then suddenly it did.

That is why decorating her nursery felt so different from any other room I had worked on. I wasn't simply choosing furniture and bedding for a new baby. I was turning a room that had represented four years of disappointment back into the thing I had originally hoped it would become. There was something incredibly satisfying about undoing the playroom and making space for her (don’t worry, Trent still had his main playspace near my office in the basement that I made just for him!)

Of course, once I knew I really was getting another nursery, I was going to have some fun with it. I wanted the room to feel feminine, sweet and a little whimsical without turning into an explosion of pink. I have never been particularly interested in creating children's rooms that look like miniature adult spaces. Kids get such a short window when their rooms can be magical, so I wanted hers to feel special while still being practical enough for an actual baby to live in.

The crib was an Ethan Allen Disney crib, which was pretty much perfect for me because it had the combination of quality furniture and subtle whimsy that I love. I paired it with a Pottery Barn organic mattress, waterproof mattress covers and soft organic cotton sheets, then added a tulle crib skirt and the prettier details that made the room feel finished. I wanted everything to feel soft and special, but I also knew from experience that there would be spit-up, diapers, laundry and all the other decidedly unglamorous parts of having a newborn.

And then, because the previous four years apparently had not provided enough drama, I was pregnant during 2020. Pregnancy already felt especially precious to me after everything we had gone through, and COVID added another layer of uncertainty and anxiety to the entire experience. I knew I would likely be having another C-section, there were so many unknowns about the virus and pregnancy at the time, and mostly I just wanted to get this baby here safely.

Gigi was born in October 2020, and suddenly the room I had once been too sad to walk past had a baby sleeping in it. I think that is why photographs of this nursery still make me so happy. I can appreciate the furniture and the decorating now, but that really isn't what I see first. I remember the empty nursery. I remember giving away the baby things I had saved for four years. I remember turning the room into a playroom because I needed to stop being reminded every day of something I wanted and couldn't seem to have. Then I remember getting to turn it back into a nursery.

Sleeping Baby Gidelle (The “G” Sounds like the “G” in “Giddy”

Ironically, after all of that waiting and all of the emotion I poured into creating the room, we didn't actually get to keep it very long. We bought our next house in January and moved in late April, so Gigi's first nursery existed for only a few months before I was packing it all up again. Under different circumstances, I probably would have been sad to dismantle a nursery I had waited so long to create, but this time packing it away didn't feel anything like giving up the nursery in 2019.

This time there was a baby coming with us.

That distinction is probably what stays with me most. The first time I took apart a nursery, I was trying to protect myself from the sadness of an empty room. The second time, I was packing up a room that had done exactly what I needed it to do. It had welcomed Gigi home, given me a few months of middle-of-the-night feedings and diaper changes, and allowed me to finally experience the little piece of motherhood I had spent four years wondering if I would ever get again.

In the end, Gigi's first nursery was one of the shortest-lived rooms I have ever decorated, but it is still one of my favorites. Not because of the crib or the bedding or any particular project that went into it, but because of what that room represented.

For four years, it had been a place I hoped to fill.

For a while, it became a place I couldn't bear to leave empty.

And then, for a few wonderful months, it finally became exactly what I had been waiting for.