Why nesting, waddling pregnant ladies shouldn’t move 2-3 weeks before they are due!

It’s 4:30am and lately I don’t ever sleep- at night that is. Since we’ve been in our new home (4 nights) I’ve slept about 2-3 hours total at night (interrupted by trips to the toilet to pee). Then by mid-morning I’m able to nap on the couch for a few more hours. I seem to be more comfortable during the day, whereas at night I’m bothered by all of my third trimester pregnancy symptoms (swollen painful legs and feet, itching, back pain, heartburn, this new pelvic girdle pain…). So yesterday I slept a ton during the day (like 3 naps totaling 6 hours!) So I’m up again tonight and decided to rant a bit about my recent moving experience and share some of the reasons why I think pregnant women probably shouldn’t move right before they give birth.

1. Pregnant ladies are basically worthless when it comes to doing any real moving (which makes them feel guilty for making their husbands do everything)!

This past weekend we finally made the move into our new place. Let me tell you, as much as we both felt like we needed to move I’m pretty sure we also both felt like we were making a huge mistake in the midst of the craziness that went on. Basically I couldn’t help with anything. All I could do was pack up the boxes and wait for others to do all the lifting and moving. Even though I appeared to be worthless in this moving process I still felt completely wiped out physically (and my swollen feet were out of control just from the standing and walking around gathering things to pack… and then unpack).

2. Nesting instincts make you extremely particular with ridiculously high expectations for cleanliness

On top of the move itself we were moving into a house that needed some love (cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning) before we could unpack any of our things. The first night I refused to bathe in the bath tub (it didn’t seem clean enough) so I actually drove back to the apartment so I could take my nightly bath. This may sound excessive, but this is coming from a girl who has been surviving the Obstetric Cholestasis itchiness by taking between 1-3 baths a day.

I’m thinking that I may be just a bit overly concerned about cleanliness because I’m in full nesting force at this point in my pregnancy. The desire to make our new home perfectly clean and put together before the babies arrive has been making me feel super stressed and anxious. I just want to make a warm, cozy home for the peeps, yet I have such little capacity and almost no time left before they will be born- crazy!

3. Pregnancy hormones make you want to go crazy preparing a proper nest for your baby/babies

This has lead me to make this strange comparison. Being in nesting mode while moving into a new house is such a bad idea! Just like going to the grocery store when you’re starving and you end up going crazy and buying things you don’t actually need. Like every flavor of JELL-O pudding available (yep, I’ve done that). Back to my comparison. You have so many desires and everything seems so important so you want to start grabbing everything off the shelves (or in my case you want to completely remodel and paint and decorate every corner of your house). Both situations are not advisable because they are usually fueled by irrational thoughts and hunger pangs (or raging mommy hormones).

4. Moving makes you feel even more unprepared and unsettled!

So after realizing that I can’t create a perfect Pinterest-worthy nursery in 2-3 weeks (while being hugely pregnant) I’m content to relax a little, make due with what we have and trust that these babies are not going to care about the lack of decor in their simple little room. They will have what they need. Clothes, a place to sleep and a mama to feed off of- and some mixture of cloth and/or disposable diapers until we figure out what we are doing in that department.

5. And after you’re done moving you should remember that you just need to CHILL out!

I sat in the nursery today looking at the 3 lonely items: a dresser, swing and bouncer. I began to imagine nursing my boys in their very own room and I felt peaceful and excited (but don’t get me wrong- these babies are not allowed to come out of me for another 2 weeks.) Actually there are a few more items in the nursery that I forgot to mention: the double stroller with car seats and a twin bed for me, and the chair I was sitting in (a super cute vintage chair that I’ve been meaning to re-cover for the past 3 years).

My new post-moving attitude

At this point I plan to throw a baby quilt over the chair, set up a crib we are borrowing from friends, find another dresser to accommodate all of the babies’ clothes and blankets and diapers and random baby stuff that I’m not sure we need, but all the baby websites made us absolutely believe that we must have… so I’m letting go of my expectations and desire for perfection (in regards to what we will bring our babies home to) and I’m trusting that all will be well because soon we will have our little loves in our new home with us.

Moving while 34 weeks pregnant with twins

Week 34 belly shot

Yes, we are crazy. We decided pretty last minute to move out of our little apartment (on the third floor) into a one story house. I had this idea when we first found out we were pregnant, but financially it seemed impossible to make the move.

Moving with 3 weeks left to go!

So throughout my entire pregnancy every time I tried to imagine leaving the apartment with 2 babies in tow I had major anxiety. I couldn’t conceive how I could carry them both down the cement stairs to the other side of the building to put them in the car. I also couldn’t imagine trying to return home with anything else besides the babies (so grocery shopping was out of the question). I had concluded that I would just never leave the apartment on my own. Then about a month ago my husband declared “I think we should move into a house”.

Besides the fact that I was 8 months pregnant, had already organized the babies’ closet and changing area and was in the middle of all of my baby sewing projects, moving to a house sounded like a wonderful idea. So for the past month I’ve put my nesting on hold and instead started slowly packing up our things. As of last Thursday, most of the apartment still looked pretty normal- in other words I wasn’t making much progress.

A wonderful husband, mother and friends

My husband had the week off so he spent all of his time at the new house doing yard work, cleaning the gutters and doing the major cleaning of the floors and bathrooms. My mom has been wonderful- making sure to deep clean the kitchen appliances and the bathrooms multiple times- because she knows how much I want to move into a clean environment for the babies. She even tried to use all of my natural cleaners- but sometimes there is a time for bleach and ammonia when my natural cleaners just can’t cut it.

This whole week I’ve only spent a few hours at the new house- because my husband and mother won’t let me do anything there. I just wander around obsessing over all the things that need to be done. So they started leaving me back at the apartment to pack up the little things that I can handle. Seriously, not being able to dive in and do housework and packing is torturous! I’ve also had a few dear friends help me with packing and cleaning- and am so thankful for their willingness to help!

Update on the babies:

• The babies have been kicking my cervix and it feels like how nails on a chalkboard sound. In other words, it kind of hurts and makes you cringe but is more unpleasant than anything else.
• The boys sometimes move a lot with forceful super noticeable movements that are visible from the outside of my belly. But then depending on the day sometimes I don’t feel them much at all- especially when I’m moving around a lot- I just feel a constant tightness of the belly.
• The NST monitoring was good this week- just like all of our previous monitoring sessions. The babies definitely move a ton every time the nurse straps on the super tight (and itchy) bands that hold the monitors in place.

My symptoms and weight gain:

• Back pain when slouching while sitting down- it’s best when I lay on my left side or sit straight up with pillows supporting my back.
• Swelling in feet and ankles moving up to my thighs. Even with my feet elevated I have to be conscious to flex the muscles in my legs to keep them from swelling even more.
• Itching is still there, but I’m having more good days with less frequent bad days.
• Still no dilation even with my irregular contractions.
• I’m noticing that I’m starting to lactate small amounts every day.
• I also have to sit on a towel around the house because of excess discharge (but nothing crazy like my water breaking). I’m sure I’ll know the difference if my water breaks! I hope!
• Weight gain- I’ve all of a sudden started gaining a ton of weight! I’m guessing some of it is water weight from all of the swelling. Last month one of the nurses suggested that I drink Ensure to get my weight up because I only gained about 2-3 pounds that month. Well, I made up for it this month- gaining about 15 pounds! I’ve now gained 48 pounds during this pregnancy!

Graduated from birthing classes- now we’re supposed to know what to do?

We finished our Bradley Method birth classes. Not sure if I’m actually prepared for birthing these babies, but at least I have some good tips and techniques that will hopefully serve us well when the time comes. Also, part of the program is to practice with my coach (husband), so I get to say things like “honey, we have to practice our relaxation massage for 10 minutes” and sometimes he agrees to pamper me!

Notice the empty bookshelf behind me? This will be my last belly shot in our old apartment

I think the babies may be dropping- my belly appears to be sagging lower this week

Like I said before, I’m behind on my posts, but this is my update for 34 weeks with my 34 week belly shots taken last week when I actually was 34 weeks. Just to be clear 🙂