Pregnant while Home Renovating

Call it “nesting,” if you wish.jenna-renovations

But I think nesting is too tame a word to describe the home projects my husband and I have undertaken during my pregnancies. In fact, our home renovation record while expecting a baby has crossed the line of an instinctual urge to organize cabinets (for the record, that’s something I have never experienced) and may now be teetering on the edge of insanity.

Two years ago, when I was 36 weeks pregnant with my son, we bought our first home. Not only was I waddling around with a full-term belly, but my husband was recovering from knee surgery and still using crutches. Neither of us should have been doing much more in our spare time than shuffling from the fridge to the couch, but that didn’t stop us from buying a 100-year-old home that needed (and still needs) quite a bit of love. I mean, it was summertime, I was eight months pregnant, and we bought a house with no central air. What were we thinking?!

Even more present on my mind than air conditioning was the thought that I might have to bring my baby home to a nursery covered in 1990’s floral wallpaper. So, with my husband propped up on a stool, me wearing a mask to guard from removal solution fumes, and my saintly mother perched on a ladder, we stripped that beautiful wallpaper for hours and hours on end.

I was really mad at my mom for taking the above picture, but now I love looking at it whenever I need a good laugh … or just a reminder that we should NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.

Apparently I’m a slow learner, because this summer I’m plenty pregnant – and chasing around a busy toddler – yet the hubs and I have decided this is the perfect time to remodel our kitchen. And renovate our third floor. And visit IKEA 837 times with a 22-month-old.

Is there a support group for this kind of behavior?

We all know there’s no good time for a renovation when you have little people, in utero or otherwise. If you can avoid this sort of “extreme nesting,” I’d certainly recommend it. But I suspect many of you are among the ranks of the home renovation fallen, so I’ll share just a few things I’ve learned during these prenatal renovations:

First, renovations while pregnant do have some perks. These include, but are not limited to: not being asked to lift heavy boxes, not being questioned when you need to hide in the bathroom every 10 minutes, getting to eat chips and artichoke dip while your husband installs hardwood floors with his bare hands, and faking a contraction whenever a particular task gets too daunting.

Second, it’s really okay to ask for help. All joking aside, it’s quite frustrating to me that I can’t do as much work right now as I could otherwise. But during that 36-weeks-pregnant move a few years ago, I did a bit more than I should have – and I was a little less careful than I should have been – and it resulted in me taking a scary fall down the stairs. So, this time around, I didn’t chance crawling up on a ladder to empty my kitchen cabinets and instead called some friends to help.

Finally – and this goes for nesting in general – I’m learning to give myself permission to leave some things undone. Some people really love the thrill of home projects, DIY crafts, and the nesting process, but it takes a ton of mental and emotional energy for me to tackle home projects, and I’ m already rather low on energy these days. So, I have to remind myself that while it’s great to get a few projects done before having a newborn, I still need to save some energy for that cute little bundle headed my way soon … and she is not going to care that we still haven’t updated the mauve-colored bathroom tile. After all, home is far more about what is happening inside its walls than about what paint color is on them.

Of course, it helps if those walls are not looking like they might fall over … and come to think of it, we’ve got a few of those that need added to the project list as well…

Jenna
Jenna lives in Midtown with her husband and two kids (ages 6 and 4). She has an M.A. in English and too many overdue books at the library. She has been working with writers for over a decade, as a high school teacher, college instructor, and writing coach. She loves good coffee, serious conversation, and not-too-serious fiction.