I started planning for the baby’s room many months in advance. It was still fairly early before we knew that the pregnancy was moving smoothly so I didn’t want to get to crazy involved but it was a fun outlet to help me get excited for what we thought was our “3rd time was a charm” sort of pregnancy. As a designer, I of course went as far as making an Indesign document that I could share with my architect husband for his buyin. He thought I was crazy but it helped sort out my favorite things and to get it captured all in 1 place. It was used as a concept as we truly did buy some of the items while I shopped around for better deals on other items.

This is a snapshot of my early concepts:

We were going with a gender neutral, mod city theme. Husband and I are both people that love a palette of neutrals so we started with a neutral base of color and materials and built on with color and art to make the room playful. We did not want a themed room that we will have to redo every few years. What is great when you start with neutrals on the walls and floor, you can add and change without much cost or work.

As designers, we love cities and traveling so the Dwell Studio City/Skyline theme was the perfect choice. Although I did explore various other bedding sets shown below:

As designers, I think most people looked at us as a couple that would put together some CRAZY over the top baby’s room, however we truly are simple in our own home design and thought this was the right step for Baby’s room. Plus with our love for art, we wanted to have an art wall in the room that would be changeable. By using framed art – we can easily add more frames or change them out for new prints when its time. Our house is simple, we used only 3 paints throughout (light grey, medium grey, and a white for the millwork, trim and ceilings) so its the perfect backdrop for all the art created by my husband.

Now to share the completed room…..

You can see that we started with our neutral base for the room which included 3 light grey walls that were already this color and then we painted the wall behind the crib the dark grey color. This color was perfect to allow the white framed art and crib to really pop off of it! Our ceiling is a white color with a large pendant that were both existing in the room prior to the conversion to a nursery. Back in May, we had all bedrooms and the office recarpeted to a carpet design and grey color we loved by Totally Carpet (a commercial carpet line). From my initial concepts, you can see we went with the original crib and chair choices. All of the dressers I initially liked were too expensive for our budget, so we found a white dresser at Ikea on sale and then changed out the pulls to make it look more modern and added a white framed horizontal mirror that is the same length as the dresser. The dresser works as both the changing area and is filled with bins in each drawer to keep everything organized. The side table, table lamp and bookcase were all items that we already had. To add a bit more color to the room, we purchased a side table made of colored trays by the crib along with the poppy red ottoman. We wanted more light by the changing table so we found a floor lamp that has adjustable light levels and the tripod base is adjustable for the height.

I put together a budget for the room along with categories for everything we were going to need for the baby to keep us on check. I love to shop for a deal so once I found an item I liked, I shopped the internet to find out which store or website was selling it at the best price. For us, the room design was to be simple and not break the bank. We can’t wait for our little guy to fully know its his room so we can share all the wonderful books we have received from so many friends and family members. And I know Dad is going to have Lincoln painting and coloring at a young age, so I can’t wait to see what he/they create together that I can possibly add to the art wall!

Photography Credit: Parkbench Photography

o7.17.15 — The journey leading up to the day when we received the most beautiful gift ever!

On a sunny Friday morning, we went for the 3rd visit of the week to see my Doctor. She said…lets do this. I think you are ready, so lets schedule you to come in this weekend to be induced. While I am a planner and always wanted to know exactly what day the birth would be, finally hearing those words, I broke into a panic. A panic that it really was happening and the hospital/delivery was the scariest part of the journey to me because it was “the unknown”. When she said this, she asked if we wanted to check in on Saturday or Sunday and of course I replied Sunday so we would have one extra day to rest and mentally prepare or to get a Saturday night dinner in at R&D Kitchen. The doctor came back into the room and said, I have you scheduled to come in on Saturday, the rooms are all booked for Sunday.

So we left my doctor’s office and called our parents to tell them the BABY should  be making an appearance the following day. It was time for both sets of parents to book their tickets to Dallas. I went to meet with a designer, picked up lunch and made my way home to work one last day before the official maternity leave. WOW. That night we went to Eatzy’s and picked up pasta and a salad. I felt like I was gearing up for a marathon…and that I was as we knew we were going to need the carbs for the following day.

The next morning the alarm went off at 6am. Although, truthfully I think I only slept an hour or so as my head was swirling with the idea of what was about to happen. We finally made our way to the car, bags and carseat and headed to the hospital and knew when we returned, we would be a party of 3. Dad needed to stop at Starbucks for a caffeine boost while Mom had not been able to eat or drink anything since 11pm on Friday evening.

Once we arrived at the hospital, we checked in and they put us in the large labor and delivery room. We had no idea we would be in this room for so long as I think we eventually saw 4 different shifts of nurses. Once you got to know one nurse, she would soon be rolling off her shift and a new one would come in. That new nurse would have to get all the information. Surprisingly none of them even knew that my doctor was coming in to deliver the baby as she had scheduled. The nurses all told me, “no, your doctor is not on call so Dr. X will be doing the delivery”. “No, I told them, my doctor said she would be here”. When they went to verify, they were stunned to find out that I was correct.

I asked midmoring when my doctor would be coming in and they told me they were keeping in contact with her regarding my progress and if my water had not broke by noon, my doctor would come in to do it. However at 10:30am, the nurse there said, your water broke so I will let your doctor know. Luckily, the only pain I was dealing with then was a rock solid bed that was extremely uncomfortable. However by 3:30pm, no major progress had occurred, so my doctor came in to check. She was surprised to see that my water had not broke which is why no progress had occurred. However once she broke it, I quickly started to feel contractions and by 5:30pm I pushed the call button and told them I was ready for my epidural. Once that was hooked up and flowing, I started to feel better and the hours started to quickly go by. However, my doctor came in a few hours later only to see I was given a higher dose of the epidural than what she prescribed as my legs had gone completely numb and felt like balloons.

I remember looking at the large digital clock and watching the hours pass. I was extremely hungry and very thirsty. Once it hit 9pm, I asked my doctor if it was really going to happen that day and she said what I thought she would say….”No.” So we waited, we pushed, we waited…..and by about 11pm, my doctor came in to help move things along. I was so thankful she was there on her weekend off. She is the calmest, nicest doctor I have ever had which made everything go much smoother than I feared.

Once the clock struck midnight, the minutes all blurred together with the anticipation, energy, strength, and patience all built up. On Sunday, July 19 . 2015 at 2:17am, our little guy decided to make his appearance. That was quite the exciting moment, as he arrived with a full head of dark hair and strong lungs with a piercing cry that tends to turn his body red when he really starts to cry. When the doctor handed him to me, it seemed surreal.  It didn’t seem like he was really ours! Along with holding our new son, I couldn’t wait to drink as much water as they would allow after not eating for over 24 hours. Then after a few more hours in that room, we were finally dismissed to move upstairs to our post partum room where we would be for a few more days.

It was from that point, that I started to experience so much that no one seems to talk about, including the weeks of pain even with a natural birth, the pads the size of underwear that they hand you to put on, watching the clock to reload my pain medicine, the nurses that rotate in and out will all give you different information on many subjects, the pain and tiredness from breastfeeding and pumping, the craving for your favorite foods – mine being a starbucks latte for breakfast and sushi for dinner!

It was in the weeks following the hospital exit that pain continued which was surprising as I thankfully did not have alot of physical pain while pregnant. Along with the pain, I felt like every time I finished feeding and getting the baby back to sleep, that it was time to do it all over again x 8 times a day! I will have to say being a mom has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Now that we have made it a month with Lincoln in our arms, we know that we have been challenged, worn down to an energy level of 0, had no sleep and stumbled around the house during the early morning feedings, but we have endured a new love that we never knew existed which over powers everything. So while it has been our biggest challenge to date, we know we will continue to be challenged during each stage of life for the next 20+ years but we wouldn’t change it for anything. We are truly blessed and appreciate all the love and support we have received along the way. As well as all the love and hands on help we have received from family and friends during the last month!