Adoption
When will you decorate the nursery? Now or later?
Our caseworker said that once we are matched with an expectant mom, she doesn't recommend putting together a nursery. Her feeling is that if you are setting up a room for that specific baby and then the e-mom decides to parent, it would be very hard on us.
Her suggestion was to either do it now before we're matched, so the room will be ready for whatever child we adopt (not a specific child.) Or she suggested waiting until we bring the baby home.
What are your feelings on this?
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Re: When will you decorate the nursery? Now or later?
I just had this conversation with my SIL's sister who had a disrupted adoption attempt in August (a boy) and a successful adoption (of a girl) in late September. She said if there were two things that she would do differently:
1. Not have a pre-adoption shower. She went through 6 years of IF treatments and really wanted to have this be as much her pregnancy as possible. She had registered and got all sports themed stuff.
2. She would decorate the room in neutrals and when she brought the baby home, she would accessorize for boy or girl.
That's just her. But since she JUST told me that, I thought I'd share!
I plan to work on the nursery during the "wait" next year. Who knows when we will be matched but the nursery is on the list of must-do's for the house.
We will keep it neutral (actually, I already have the bedding) and practical.
I tend to be a very pragmatic person, and I think/hope that I will be able to manage my emotions during the matching process and always keep in mind that the matched child may not actually be our intended child. With that mind set, I am hoping that the nursery will feel like ours rather than a child that may not be ours.
Thanks, pp.
That's an interesting perspective.
Thank you so much for all of the different responses. I am very much a planner, too, so I'm thinking I may start putting things together soon.
We have an armoire and bookshelf that I painted white, so those pieces are already in the nursery. I love books, so I've bought a few children's books that will be for our baby.
I think I would want to wait on the shower until post-placement, but who knows. I think that if a birthmom changed her mind, it would be so hard - period. I don't think having the room not ready is going to ease that pain if it doesn't work out.
It might be fun to post pics of our nurseries-in-progress at some point...maybe we can all do that if you want to. I want to enjoy this part of our waiting period as much as I can - I know the waiting will be hard enough.
One nice thing about adoption- you can put together the nursery at your leisure. We did that.
We chose a theme (gender neutral sailboats, as we both love the water and I love to sail) and found the right bedding, etc. By using colors that were gender neutral we could use it for either a boy or a girl (we ended up with a boy).
It helped us in the waiting process. And, we were able to put it in our profile as well. It showed we were ready for a little one.
We never had a shower, either before or after our little guy. So I can't give you personal opinions on that. But I would recommend if there is something you want, go ahead and get it. You can get by with the necessities and go from there.
But I do know people who did both. One did a shower before that wasn't for a specific baby but rather a "stock the nursery". Others have had them after the baby was home.
I'm a little late, but we have already started decorating (or planning to decorate) in a gender neutral way. (one wall with big dots in a variety of colors) I've already painted the dresser, and we're borrowing a crib. I've been stocking up little bits at a time on clothes that I see on sale, so I have a little something to play with when I need a baby fix.
DH and I decided not to do anything nursery related until after we were HS approved because even though we know we're 'good people' we didn't want to invest a ton of time energy and money if we were going to hit such an early roadblock. Now we're hs approved, getting ready to translate (we're doing IA) and in touch with a specific orphanage in my dh's birthcountry where we will be put on a priority list when our papers arrive due to is heritage. I say all of that only to say that we're at a point now where even though nothing is for sure, the hardest part is said to be over and I know that I need something to do during that wait time. Also we'll be in country for weeks and I know that when we do get home I will want the house to feel ready. So, we have a crib and we've started making some decor things that can go for either gender. I don't like highly pastel nurseries personally so we're going with chocolate browns, sage, cream, and hints of both cranberry and navy. Then when we get a referal we'll personalize with the child's name specifically. I plan on starting to do bedding, window treatments, etc the first week of january which should be right around the time we send our dossier. As for a shower, I want that to be post placement if it happens. Sorry that was long, hth