Nesting Tales

You may have heard of a peculiar phenomenon that happens to women during the latter part of their pregnancies.  Much like other animals, women start feeling a strange urge to prepare their environment for the birth and the new baby.

This often starts out innocently enough.  Things start catching her eye, like the extra layer of dust on the bookshelf that she hadn’t given much though to before, or the pile of old baby clothes at the bottom of the linen closet that were meant to be sorted years ago.  Some women nest very practically, preparing the nursery, washing clothes, cooking and freezing meals and putting the house in order.  Some women, like me, nest totally impractically.  I ignore the laundry, the dusty rugs, the messy closets, and instead feel an inexplicable need to polish the silver.  Many women experience what I call “consumer nesting”, and find themselves wandering up and down the aisles of baby stores like a kid trying to pick out a birthday present, or obsessively surfing the Internet for hours on end to find just the right baby carrier.

As time goes on, this need to prepare the nest can slowly develop into a kind of existential panic about everything needing to be ready right now.  Last pregnancy I found myself standing in the middle of a baby store crying to my husband that “We need SOMETHING, I don’t know WHAT, but WE’RE JUST NOT READY!!!”  (To his great credit, instead of laughing or rolling his eyes at my pregnancy-induced insanity, he very calmly explained that we have everything we need, if we need anything else our parents will be around to get it for us, and why don’t we buy this package of diapers and wipes to make me feel better.)  To me it wasn’t enough to know that the resources were out there.  I needed to know exactly where everything we needed was going to be and have a precise plan ready for Birthing Day.

It was to my great fortune last time that I had done great mental preparation for the possibility of giving birth late… and ended up giving birth quite early.  I didn’t really have a chance to put much thought into the timing and logistics of the birth.  This time, due to a number of annoying circumstances including moderate bed rest from 34 weeks and my midwife being absent for the first week and a half of my being considered full term, I have had far too much opportunity to freak out about backup midwives, the High Holidays and exactly how we would be able to fit the birth into these things.  The Jewish New Year being next week we have finally sorted out our plans and we have two backup midwives on call, one of whom delivered the previous baby and one of whom we will be meeting this evening.  Our gear is almost all together and I am finally starting to feel relief.  But getting to this point was not easy at all.

I think the most important thing in dealing with this type of “nesting anxiety” is to recognize it for what it is: a biological need for security.  Like a cat scouting out linen closets, I am preparing my environment for the upcoming birth and the new baby.  Once I understood this and was able to help my husband understand, it was easier to sort out what needed to be done to help me feel more secure and ready.  It was strange to him that I had a desperate need for the homebirth supplies to be bought and stowed in one place before I was even full term, especially given that there was a real possibility that we would have to have a premature hospital birth.  Once he understood that like many pregnancy-related things, logic had nothing at all to do with it… he was able to take my need seriously and help me prepare.

And yes, in case you’re wondering.  I did end up polishing the silver.

What crazy things did you do when you were nesting?