04/18/2026
Tender Nest šŖ¹
This room didnāt come together easily. It used to be our guest room/office, which meant everything had to shift to make space for her.
The planning, the donating, the tossing, the rearranging. All while pregnant for the first time. Managing gestational diabetes.
Appointments, finger pricks, trying to keep up with work, taking care of her in my body through this new experience.
Then came the diagnosis I dreaded. Pre-eclampsia with HELLP syndrome. I was scared. I didnāt feel ready. We had planned to pack my overnight bag after our routine checkup. I was rushed to be admitted instead.
Zoey was a month early, arriving full of vigor. She spent 18 days in the NICU, and I was determined to finish nesting. I would be with her all day, then come home at night to do exactly that.
Healing from a c-section and birth trauma. Going through gifts. Finding places for everything.
Not perfectly. Not all at once. But piece by piece, the room took shape, and I found the calm and grounding I needed while I waited for her.
We brought her home, and suddenly it all felt so real. I remember collapsing on the bed and saying, āI canāt do this.ā But I did. And I still do.
Not perfectly. Not all at once. But day by day, I became her mother.
The nursing, the consoling, the contact naps, the diaper changes. In between all of it, I was finishing my last design project.
Then the email arrived.
Suddenly unemployed, with a colicky preemie, and no real safety net to fall back on.
I felt hurt and angry, but not surprised. She became my everything.
So by the end of the year, I decided to do something else scary. Start my own studio.
Looking at it now, I donāt just see a nursery. I see everything it held during that time.
The stress, the tears, the pressure, but also the warmth, the release, and the unconditional love.
This room was just as much for me as it was for her.
This is where Elizabeth Ann Interiors began. Not perfectly. Not all at once. But piece by piece, it is finding its footing. āØļø
