Baby Keagan's Nursery

Roy and I feel we are meant to be parents, and have had those feelings since before we even got married. So, we took the opportunity to purchase the furniture for a nursery shortly after getting married. We were not pregnant and did not have plans of getting pregnant within the year even, but knew that we wanted to have children eventually so we spaced out our purchases and had the boxes just sitting in our spare bedroom until the wonderful time that we found out we were expecting! When I told Roy I was pregnant, he wanted to put the crib together the next day but I asked him to wait because I wanted to make sure everything was okay with the baby. Thinking we were "in the clear," I believe we put the crib, glider and changing table together in November and December.
As I said before, we had planned to go shopping for nursery decor the day of our gender ultrasound but those plans came crashing down along with the world around us on that day. When we got home we put up a curtain to cover the view into the nursery (we don't have a door on that room yet...) because the pain of looking at all of the furniture was too much to bear on top of everything else. This is actually a painful memory for me in itself. I had a curtain covering the closet in the room, so with tears running down my face and a whirlwind of emotions going on I took the rod down and tried to shorten it to fit in the nursery doorway. I remember Roy standing behind me with his hands on my back and me yelling "I can't do it." I literally could not get the rod to turn but even more so I think I was just saying I could not deal with the news we had learned that day. Roy took the rod out of my hands as I continued to cry and said "I will do it for you." This is symbolic of how Roy has been my rock through our journey, and I am so thankful for him.
That curtain stayed in front of the nursery for days, maybe even weeks. Then one day, I decided to go in and sit in the nursery. I know Roy did this too in the days to follow. While this was hard, it was really helpful for both of us and now I enjoy sitting in Keagan's room thinking of everything we've done with him and how much love is being shown in several facets of our lives. Eventually, we got to the point that we could take the curtain down.
After that, we decided to prepare the nursery. Several people may think this is silly or that we are just making it harder for ourselves and to be honest, I think that at times as well. But Roy and I both have a feeling (praying this is not just high hopes) that Keagan will live a few days and get to come home with us, and we want him to have a room to come home to! Even though he will be staying in our room if he gets to come home, he still deserves a room in our minds :) Not only this, but we also are doing this as an act of faith. Once again, we are not denying what we know to be medically true but we also know that God CAN perform a miracle and painting Baby K's room demonstrates we believe in God and that He can allow our son to come home with us. Another reason we made this choice is it has actually been a healing process for us. We have had the joy of preparing our baby's nursery and creating memories as a family through doing so. Just as sitting in his nursery is helpful for me now, I also think it will be a common place for me to go as we grieve. Maybe not the best idea, but sounds like something I would do :)
Stories behind the nursery:
The dresser was the one piece of furniture that we did not have. Because we had bought the set nearly two years ago, the dresser was only available online when we went to look at it in November. My parents wanted to purchase this for us and made sure to get it while it was still available. It was then lovingly assembled by Keagan's Papaw. I hear it was not an easy process, so we are incredibly grateful for him doing that for us!
We were given advice to paint the nursery a gender neutral color so that if Keagan is not able to come home, then at least we could keep the nursery the same color for our next baby regardless of whether it is a boy or girl. One of my fears has been having to paint over the color we chose for Keagan and having to making all of the wounds fresh again. I kept these things in mind as I picked out the colors. You will see that I chose blue and will probably think that's not very gender neutral. Don't worry, I know :) Blue is actually my favorite color and this shade was one that I was looking at for a girls nursery based on the bedding I found so we will make it work if we need to! Roy painted the entire nursery in one night - he said he was determined to keep going until he finished and I was amazed the next morning when I woke up to the beautiful room. Papaw and Gramma came over to help with the finishing touches. Papaw made sure I didn't move any furniture (I tend to think I am very strong and can do things myself) and helped with a lot of little details. Gramma helped with painting the stencils. We were both afraid to make a mistake so we tried to get each other to do it :) I am so thankful to Roy, Papaw and Gramma for their help in creating the perfect nursery for Keagan.
I had the desire to paint something on the walls, but wasn't quite sure what, so I just started searching. The first website I looked at had the dandelions and they jumped out at me. I continued to look for other ideas but kept coming back to the dandelions. I thought they were appropriate because our journey has been based so heavily on hopes, wishes and prayers. What better way to represent this than with dandelions!? Side note - the stencils were extremely easy and quick!
The butterfly has a special meaning to me. When I opened the package of stencils that I had ordered from the internet, I was thrown off by a little butterfly stencil. It was not packed with the other stencils and was not part of our order at all. It seemed like a mistake that it was included. I did not have any plans to use it, but I thought, well maybe there was a reason it was in there and now I am so glad it was. I looked up the meaning of butterflies and found so many interesting things that I could apply and pray for in our journey. Here are a few of my findings.

• Butterflies can symbolize a profound change of the soul. Keagan has had so many effects on us and several other people we know. We will never be the same because of his life and know other people feel the same way.
• Butterflies can also be a symbol for long-life. We constantly pray for the length of Keagan's life and would LOVE for him to have a long-life.
• Just as caterpillars will never crawl again but instead will fly as butterflys, our little guy may never be able to crawl but he will definitely be flying high in the sky as an angel.
• Lastly, butterflies symbolize beauty. Caterpillars spend the perfect amount of time in the cocoon to transform into the new beautiful creatures. Baby Keagan will spend the perfect amount of time in my womb until God says it is time to grace us with his presence as a perfect and beautiful little baby. I can't wait to see our beautiful son!

I painted one butterfly to look as if it were resting on the crib. I painted another in the closet with the hope that if we move to a new house in the future that butterfly won't get painted over and Keagan will always leave his mark there :) Everytime I see a butterfly I will now think of our little guy and hope you will too!