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.
growing peeps 