Niya's Nursery

I love looking at kids' rooms. So I am linking up with Kelly's Korner SUYL.

When Neil was born, we were living in a small 2 br house with a den. We bought the house when we were just the two of us and thought it was plenty big. At that time, I was working outside the home and hardly spent any time in there. Soon, with the birth of Neil and both sets of (our) parents staying long term, plus R working from home full time, we outgrew it. To top it all, I became a SAHM. Not only was it a smallish house, it was very quirky. It has the worst use of space I have seen in a house. Anyway, this year we moved to another house and I was able to put a nursery together for our daughter. Right now, she is hanging out with us, so it is looking great, so I wanted to put a post and pictures together to remember how it once was :) Soon enough, it will be like the rest of the house.

I didn't want an all pink super girly room. I love soft green and white so I wanted to do something along that lines. Then again, I couldn't help but throw some pink in the mix.

The crib is my absolute favorite brand, Baby's dream (Neil has the same one). It is quite pricey as far as cribs go, but this one was from a garage sale and it was in excellent condition.

These are the canvas art I custom ordered hanging above the crib.

The one on the far left is a favorite verse from Zephaniah 3:17, middle is the initial of her name and the third are the different meanings of her name.

This is how it looks from the door. I love the crocheted blanket hanging over the rocking chair that a lovely lady at the chapel made for the baby. Above the changing table is the Feltman Brothers dress that she came home from the hospital in. She was so tiny that it was a mercy that those dresses run a little small so she could fit into it without looking ridiculous.

The changing table is Neil's old one which I also painted white and green to match the dresser and night stand.

Her closet, which frankly I think are way too many clothes, but in my defense I must have bought her 3 outfits, all the rest are gifts.

When I was pregnant with her, we asked Neil what we should name her, he said Button. Pressing the buttons around the house is his favorite thing to do. So, for fun, I made this little craft with buttons and scrapbook paper and put it in a white photo frame from Ikea. I loved how it turned out!

The dresser and night stand were two pieces I bought for a song from craigslist and painted white and pale green and changed the knobs. It looks nice and different and I love the lines on it.

The milky way on the ceiling and it looks great when it is pitch dark.

I loved working on the nursery as it was a labor of love for me. With a toddler, and work, and a hundred other things clamoring for my attention, it was hard to spend a lot of time thinking about the baby inside. But when I was painting, and ordering fabric, it really was a sweet time thinking about her. (usually late at night when I get a minute to myself)

It really is a very peaceful room, much like the personality of our baby girl who is a week old today. Finally, a picture of our precious Niya.

Niya's birth story

I have not updated this blog in forever, so I am not even sure I had mentioned I was pregnant with baby #2. Well, 40 weeks and 2 days passed and I gave birth to our beautiful baby girl Niya in the year of our Lord 2012. I want to remember how she was born so I am recording it here. I am not even sure anyone other than myself reads this blog anymore so really it is just for myself.

This whole pregnancy was so different from when I was pregnant with Neil. One of the main reasons for the absence on the blog is that we were super busy with a house move, and I had a horrible first trimester. I was hit with migraines which I have never had before in my life. Then they found I had a thyroid issue. I lost a lot of weight and the morning sickness was horrible. I gained my first pound at 21 weeks. Anyway, all this to say that I should not have been so surprised that the birth went the way it did. At close to 38 weeks, I started having contractions and while it was not too bad, it really scared me into thinking that I was going into labor. That really sped up things from my end of getting ready for the baby. I got everything ready for the nursery and got the hospital bag ready and even washed her clothes. Since my mom was not planning to come until the 28th, I even arranged with a friend to watch Neil. So, all was in readiness. After all the getting ready, she then decided to stay awhile after all. At my 37 week check, I was 1cm dilated and 25% effaced. Every week after that, I was 1 more cm dilated. So, at my due date I was 60% effaced and close to 4 cm.

My due date fell on a Saturday and my last check up was on Tuesday. We scheduled an induction on Tuesday if baby was not planning on coming before that. I was not super thrilled about the induction, to be completely honest, but I was happy that at least I was able to have my favorite doctor there that day. When I was praying, I prayed I would be able to go naturally on Tuesday. Saturday came and went, and so did Sunday. We all went to church and went out to eat. We came back and I was seized with a desire to clean house. My mom was baffled and kept insisting that I should rest. I was on a roll and cleaned the kitchen and living room and even cleaned the leather sofa with a conditioner that I had bought a while ago which was not opened until that day. Should that have been a clue? I had been having Braxton hicks for pretty much every day until Sunday, but that day, I had no pain, and was very much energized. My mom and I talked late into the night, then I felt hungry around 1 am. I ate some noodles, had water melon, and finally at around 2 am went upstairs to sleep. I was tired and woke up at 2:45 with a contraction. This felt different, but I decided I won't disturb anyone until I felt it more intense and more frequent. I continued to try and sleep. I got the next one at 3:10 and it felt about the same. I didn't really go back to sleep and at 3:22 am my water broke. I immediately woke up my husband, transferred Neil to mom, grabbed the hospital bag, and was out the door and in the car by 3:32 am.

It was a 30 minute drive to the hospital and the contractions at first were every 10 minutes. Then it became every 4 minutes and were getting very intense. I kept praying over and over, Lord, please let me get to the hospital. We got there and since it was in the wee hours of the morning, the door was locked and R had already driven away, I started panicking. Thankfully, there was a phone and I managed to call in and get in. I went to the reception, and she asked me for the SSN. I could barely talk and gave her my number and then started kneeling on the floor. At this point, I really felt like I wanted to poop. They took me to triage, checked me, and almost immediately wheeled me out to labor and delivery. I kept saying, it hurts, it hurts. I felt like I kept asking for epidural, but hubby says that I only asked for it twice. It was 4:20, I remember everyone asking me to breathe and I was not listening. Nothing was helping. I vaguely remember wondering why they were not giving me IV for epidural. There was a haze of faces and the pain was intense and I know I wanted to push so bad. My whole body was telling me to push and the nurses told me no pushing as the doctor was not there. R told me lat that I bit him and that I kicked one of the nurses. I don't remember any of that. One thing I do remember. R looked straight into my eye and said, Annie, she is almost here, you are going to have to do it without an epidural. What stood out to me is that the called me Annie. He has called me Annie twice before in our married life. Once when saying the wedding vows, second when Neil was born. I then knew things were serious. I calmed down then as I knew I had to do whatever it took to bring her out. I heard the nurse say, she is full term and she can push with the next contraction whether the doctor is here or not. God bless her! Thankfully, the doctor came then and when the next contraction came, I pushed her out.

Niya Kalpana was born at 4:32 am perfect and beautiful at 5 lb 11 oz, 18 inches long. Yes, she is tiny. But not a lot tinier than how her mama was. It was a very short labor by any standard and all things considered, it was perfect. I had a minor tear which the doctor stitched with a local anesthesia. It was not too bad actually. I never had a birth plan, and an all natural delivery was certainly not in any plan of mine. But God orchestrated the details perfectly, he gave me the grace to undergo the pain (albeit the kicking and biting) and it worked out so well that the pain came in the night so we could get to the hospital in time with no traffic. I don't know if it has anything to do with the fact that I had a drug free delivery, but my recovery was much better and faster. I personally think it was because of the fast labor so it was not very exhausting. We feel very blessed and are back home from the hospital now. There is a Jewish prayer I posted when Neil was born and I can't find anything more appropriate than that.

Blessed art thou O Lord Our God, King of the Universe
who has kept me alive and sustained me
and brought me to this wonderful moment.