Shades of Coral and White

We've waited an awfully long time to buy baby stuff. Decorating a nursery and stocking the closet are some of the fun parts about waiting for a child, whether it be through birth or adoption. For the last few years, we've window shopped in countless baby stores and researched child products galore, but never had we any occasion to actually purchase something. In fact, in order not to jinx ourselves, we promised each other that we wouldn't buy so much as a teeny tiny t-shirt or even a stuffed giraffe until we knew we were well on our way to becoming parents.

Nonetheless, baby supplies have started to trickle into our household little by little. My sister-in-law gifted us with the crib my beloved nephew deemed himself too good to ever sleep in. The crisp white slats stand at attention in the garage, waiting to be assembled. My SP6 pal Sarah generously donated a stroller now outgrown to our cause. I felt somewhat like a fraud as I wheeled it away and stuffed it in my car's trunk, all the while sensing the strangest glimmer of motherhood, the promise of "someday" hanging heavily in the air.

Intellectually, I know there will come a time when I'll have to take off my comfy DINK hat and break in an itchy new one that screams "mommy". Emotionally, amidst the trials and failures and waits and doubt, I've had a hard time believing it's actually going to happen. At last, in a clutching effort to anchor myself to an end result that too often seems just out of reach, I bought something. Amazingly, it is not the paperwork we're nearing the end of, or the people that we've told our plans to, or even the act of deciding to adopt that did it. Somehow, some way, it's the act of buying that first item, of transitioning from a window shopper to a woman who most assuredly has a reason to purchase crib bedding, that has finally made me believe.