Moving Houses While Pregnant

Moving is stressful no matter where you are in life. There is the packing and the cleaning and the organizing. Then there is the loading everything in a truck, driving it to your new destination, unpacking, cleaning, and organizing. It is a trying time for most people. It is a hard time for most people.

Moving homes while pregnant adds a different level of stress to it all. Especially, if you're like me and wait until the third trimester to relocate. I don't recommend it if you have alternative options. But sometimes you have to do it.

So, with only five weeks left until my due date, I decided to pack up all my things and finally move three hours north to the place I've been living for the last few months. I suppose I had to finally accept that I was living there.

Piece by piece, I had been moving in over the months. But it was time to make the official move. Because once the little one shows up, there is going to be no time to do it.

So I bit the bullet and got it done.

Three carloads, three weekend trips, and a trailer later, I am officially moved in. Everything I care about is with me. All my books, all my knick-knacks, all my furniture - it's all here. And it's all waiting to be placed in its new home.

See, that's the problem of moving into someone else's house. There is a lot of shuffling around to do to find spaces for your belongings. There is cleaning and sorting and organizing that needs to be done. There are decisions about furniture that need to be made.

You have to make room for one another. You have to compromise.

The problem with doing this all so close to your due date is that you are already in full-blown nesting mode. You want your house to be homey and ready for the baby to arrive. You want some semblance of order before your life is thrown into chaos.

This would be easy enough to achieve on any normal day. But being in the third trimester you can't lift anything. You can't be on your feet too long. Your back is sore, your feet are swollen, and you are mildly grumpy. This limits your ability to move furniture, unpack, clean, and sort in a manner that you would be used to if you weren't pregnant.

I've moved a few times in my life. And it doesn't usually take too long for me to get all unpacked and settled. This move is taking me longer than any one move before it. And the chaos of not being unpacked is making me twitch a little.

But I'm learning to accept it. I'm learning to take it one room at a time. To organize one thing at a time. To move one piece of furniture at a time.

Yes, there is a bit of a rush, but you can only do so much. Sometimes in life, you have to embrace your limitations and you have to work within them. It can be difficult to do, but it will make the whole process easier.

So, to all my mother-to-be's out there who are also doing the crazy thing of moving during the third trimester, it will be okay. You will get your house in order. You will get everything sorted.

And even if you don't, it's not the end of the world. You will find balance again in your life, it just might not happen until after the baby arrives. It's best to just go with the flow on some things and hope for the best.