Before I jump into the blog, I want to extend a heartfelt ‘Thank you’ to all of you who read my blogs. I wrote a blog in early January about how Theo and I would open the nursery to prepare for Stryder’s arrival. The number of people who read, followed up with us, and/or prayed was overwhelming. I genuinely believe that this made that day go as well as possible.
I decided to post this today because:
(1) I’ve had it sitting in my drafts,
(2) we finally have most of the finishing touches done and
(3) two years ago today, Archer went into the hospital.
I cannot believe two years ago, our lives started the process of a forever change we were not ready for.
Anyways, here is the long-awaited blog (by some):
Theo and I decided that on January 20th, we would open Archer’s nursery door for the first time since his passing in April (2022). Neither of us was ready to open it, and we delayed it as long as possible.
That morning, we talked about opening the door but distracted ourselves with other things until we had to do it. My parents came over to be both an emotional support and to do some things that Theo and I couldn’t do. When they arrived, we still took some time to delay what had to be done, but finally, the time came, and we opened the door.
Just opening the door felt like a weight had been lifted. Obviously, I cried; however, I didn’t have the overwhelming emotions I had thought I would. That’s not because I don’t love and miss Archer, but it was just a lot to look at, and I tried to stay as task-oriented as possible to get things done.
The main goal was to put away Archer’s things and remove the nursery furniture so that we could clean out the room. Then Theo would be flipping the nursery for Stryder in the coming weeks.
I honestly thought that we would be packing 100% of Archer’s things away. But I realized I wanted to go through Archer’s things when we started getting down to it. I wanted to spend time remembering the moments. Theo and I sat and went through every single outfit of Archer’s. We determined what had memories and what we didn’t have many memories with. We put away anything with a memory in a box just for Archer’s use.
Some parts of the day are a bit blurry in my mind since this was such an emotional day all around. However, one of the moments I remember becoming emotional was when I saw one of his onesies. It has a little bear on it and says, ” Please look after this bear. Thank you”. This hit me hard because I had to ask someone else (aka God) to watch over my baby bear now that I could not. I remember holding it to my chest and just crying so hard over it.
Besides that, we had memories of many other outfits, but nothing made me as emotional as this. Any other outfits without deep memories were determined to be available for Stryder’s use. I never thought that Stryder would get to share clothes with his brother, but I’m grateful that he does.
Another emotional item was going through and seeing all of the medical supplies we still had for Archer. I had to ask my mom to go through it all and use her judgment on what was practical to keep (for IVF or future babies) and what should be thrown away. The one item I couldn’t bring myself to do anything with was his glucose monitor. I find that the items used closer to his passing are more challenging for me to ‘deal with.’
The last item that I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep in the nursery was Archer’s furniture (crib and dresser). When I was pregnant with Archer, Theo spent so much time painting this white set to a Hunter Green. Little did we know then, but we now associate Archer and green together (for many reasons – like his furniture, baby blanket, baby Yoda, etc.). I refused to part with the furniture too. After long talks about what to do with it, we decided that we would store it away for a little while. The crib will one day convert into the toddler bed for Stryder, and he will use the bed set at that point in time. Seeing it in a different form was more peaceful to me than reusing it in the same form for Stryder.
After quite a few hours, we got Archer’s room all cleared out. It was almost completely empty, except for a few things we left on the walls. It all felt so final.
Pretty much the next day, Theo started to flip the nursery and put up board and batten for the nursery. In about a week and a half, Theo had the room completely done, and I was able to spend time cleaning. The room isn’t completely done, but I want to share a few photos with you all of the new nursery.
We decided to honor Archer in a few different ways.
- We bought these wooden bears for Archer’s nursery. I always wanted to have a whole family of bears, so when we got pregnant, I went out on Etsy to buy some more baby bears. Funny thing is that the shop was ‘closed’. Thankfully, I found this wood-worker on Instagram and shared a little of our story and asked him if I could commission him to create us two more baby bears: one that looked just like the previous baby bear, and one that was similar to the previous baby bear but had a Halo over his head. This gentleman was beyond gracious and shipped us both for free. I cannot tell you how much it meant to me to have these bears!
- All of our children will have names that are associated with Archery in some way shape or form. We desire to honor Archer in that way and have his name live on through his siblings. Therefore, all of the kids will have arrow name signs and they will be added to the wall above the crib.
- The red panda. This red panda was won at the Mineshaft on June 26, 2023. Theo and I took Archer there, well his urn, and celebrated his 2nd birthday there. One of the prizes we won was this red panda. If you don’t know, Archer’s bench at the Milwaukee Zoo is located right by the red pandas. How could we not add it to the nursery?
Honestly, I could probably go on and on about ways we tried to keep Archer’s memory alive in his room, but I think those are the biggest three.
Theo and I go back and forth calling it “Archer’s Room” or “Stryder’s Room”. Let’s be real, it will always be Archer’s room, but it will be all of the kid’s room at some point. I’m okay with messing up and calling it Archer’s. I’m okay when I call it Stryder’s. It’s weird how grief works and how sometimes we call it a different boy’s room based on how we feel that day.
I’m proud of making it through this big milestone. It wasn’t easy, but I’m grateful that we did this and honored Archer through it.
