Our Nursery "...we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed..." I Corinthians 15:51 Mary Joyce’s nursery is a special place already.  Many days, I sit in the rocker as I have my quiet time.  As I pray, I pray for our daughter, for her caretakers, for those involved in the adoption process both in China and the U.S., for her birthmother, for the other families in our travel group, and for their waiting children.  God’s hand has been evident in this process from the beginning. As we set out to decorate the nursery, I already had some ideas in mind.  I have always liked dark wood furniture, so I knew that was what I wanted in Mary Joyce’s room.  We also decided that we wanted the room to be pretty and feminine, but not overly frilly.  We found the perfect furniture, and the perfect bedding set.  I spent several days painting the walls in a pretty antique white and finishing the bookshelf to match the other furniture.  Chet put together the changing table and the bookshelf. We waited what seemed like an endless amount of time for the crib (see below). Over the past few months, we have accumulated a good number of books, clothes, toys, and other essential items.  Now, we just need a little girl to sleep in that crib, play with those toys, and wear those clothes.  Her room is ready and waiting.       The Crib Saga Those of you who know me have heard most of this story in bits and pieces, and I said I would share it with everyone once the crib made it into the house.  So, here it is... In mid-June, Chet and I went to a baby store to order our crib, changing table, and bedding set.  We had already picked out everything except the crib mattress, so we were able to get our order placed pretty quickly.  The salesman told us that everything should be in within 3 weeks.  After 3 1/2 weeks, Chet called to check on our order and found out that instead of 3 weeks, we should have been told 3 months.  We were also told that 3 months was the absolute longest it should take, and that everything should be in before that.  It was frustrating to hear this, but 12 weeks is actually a more standard estimate of how long orders usually take, so it didn't bother us that much. The next time we checked with the store, they had heard from the manufacturer of the crib and changing table that the cribs were somehow tied up with customs.  All of us (store owner included) were scratching our heads over that one.  (Later, Chet and I wondered if the manufacturer wasn't just trying to buy some time or something.) One day we got a phone call that everything was at the store except the crib, so we said that we would go on and pick up everything else.  That was on August 2.  Periodically, we would check with the store.  In the course of all of this, we found out what had actually happened to the crib. The individual pieces for these cribs are manufactured in China, then shipped to the US where they are assembled into the larger pieces, which are the ones assembled to put the crib together.  The ship that was carrying the pieces for the cribs, including ours, SANK! We were skeptical at first, but we checked online and found out that a freighter had sunk after leaving China.  Our original crib is somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.  Someone told me that we could wave at it as we fly over on our way to China. :)  We were thinking at this point that it was going to be easier to get Mary Joyce home than it would be to get her crib here. We continued to check with the store periodically, and last week we found out that the crib was on a truck headed to Albany.  (We figured at the rate we were going that something would happen to the truck before it got to the store.--like it was hit by a meteorite or something...)  Thankfully, when we got home from Atlanta on Saturday, we had a message on our answering machine from the store that our crib had actually arrived in Albany and that they would be delivering it today and assembling it for us for free.  They were true to their word, and now there is a fully assembled crib in our nursery AT LAST. :) And that's the story.  It only took from June 18 to October 4 to actually get the crib into the house. :)                   This page hosted by