Building a House While Pregnant: This Mama's Experience

Disclosure: I'm going to get real and be a little vulnerable here for a minute, so be nice if you comment.

After googling this subject and coming up with squat I figured maybe that's because most people aren't crazy enough to do it. And, had I seen how long this was going to be taking, I would have done it differently too. Blame my hormones, my husband's encouragement, God's command, the excitement of having a new little one... blame ME. Yes, I am saying that this is not what I pictured. Does that mean I am not thrilled to be having this little boy? Not at all! I couldn't be more happy, but it does mean I don't always feel like I can express that happiness. As soon as I found out I was pregnant I didn't even want to tell anyone because I just didn't want to hear it. Quite honestly I had foolishly thought it would have taken awhile longer to get pregnant and my due date wouldn't have been an issue to our timeline. Not the case and moving on! So, now I am seven month pregnant and staring down my due month like a deer in the headlights. Let me tell you, I have never felt so much stress, pressure and out of control in my life. I could rattle off a laundry list of things that stress me out (read haunt me) daily regardless, but this takes the cake.

First off, I birth my babies at home. At HOME. My home is not done. I currently have no place to give birth. Make this my number one stress.

I have a ton of crap I have moved about a half a dozen times in the last six years and a lot of it I don't even know where it is or that it even exists until I open mystery box number 27. I am not usually a terribly disheveled person, I like to be fairly organized but after you pack and re-pack and re-pack and re-pack you start to just not even bother to unpack any thing but the necessaries. They are just things but not having your things just makes you feel like you don't belong where you are. And, really we don't belong here. My parent's home stopped being mine the day I got married and I have felt an underlying level of guilt and failure since the day we moved back here. Now that our basement is finished enough, I have begun to wade through all our belongings in the basement of my parents house and will soon do the same with the ones in our horse trailer. This I hate. I will love having it be finished, but it is a lot of work and requires me to make a mess in order to accomplish it. I started with the easy and kind of fun stuff: baby things. I am almost done with prepping the baby's needs so soon I will move on to everything else and possibly I will have enough to do a yard sale.

Montana Man and I see very little of each other. This makes me sad. He works all week and then is at the house all weekend. I see him in snippets but it's not the same as being able to spend a whole day together as a family. I am so proud of the work he is doing and his provision for us. This is hard though. Both of us are stressed and exhausted at the end of each day and our marriage is kind of just an after thought right now. We are parenting fine together, but I miss closeness and love. We talk about financing, carpentry, how much time we have left, how much work he will have this week, what's next on the list of to dos. As an emotional and hormonal pregnant lady, this is second in line for stress. I'm trying not to let this bother me so much so that I don't put any more pressure on MM, but lately I have been struggling with it and I'm starting to get depressed.

I am starting to have a hard time keeping up with normal everyday life. I'm bigger, I'm tired and my two little energizer bunnies are running me ragged physically and emotionally. My mom helped me so much yesterday and I am so grateful for her! But, I hate needing help! I just feel guilty that I can't do it all and worry that I am being a burden to those that are helping me. To be honest, yesterday was half physically exhausted and half depressed. Ugh, so frustrating! My children are my life pretty much and to feel like I am failing at that just reinforces my guilt.

One thing that surprises me is that I do not have any fear about mothering three children once I have the baby. Praise be to God, I do not stress about that! In fact, I feel quite peaceful about it. Check one for the positive list!

I'm not writing this post to have anyone pity me and I hope no one will judge me harshly! I am writing this because I am so sick of people just covering up what life really is like! Everyone's got something! I will not feel these things once we are moved in and once the baby is here, but that doesn't mean that the next two months won't be hard. I wish I could read something like this so I guess I wrote this for those that are in the same situation(ish) so they can relate. So, if you are the prayerful type... pray. Pray for someone to finance us so we can stay on track, for Montana Man to stay well and have enough work to keep the bills paid, for the baby to not come early, and for my sinful, worrisome, insecure heart to cling to Jesus.