The ability to give help with grace, especially when you don’t feel like it.

Birthing and Parenting Partners, this one is for you! There are going to be some thankless days ahead of you. And even if there were a million ba-jillion thanks’s on the way, there’s only so much that will help after months of doing all the cooking, laundry, lifting, dishes, appointment setting, and more! It’s gonna be hard and sometimes you are going to be so over it.

Short Reads

• Caregiver Dot Org Article, “The Emotional Side of Caregiving”

• Parent Dot Com Article, “18 Ways to Care For Your Pregnant Partner”

• The Manual Article, “How to Support Your Pregnant Partner”

• Is one of the new things you need to do meal-planning, grocery shopping and cooking and you have no idea where to begin? Try one of these articles…Kitchn “The Beginner’s Guide to Meal Planning” or “Meal Planning for Beginners” and here’s a link for more sample meal plans than you could dream of.

Do

• Do things without being asked…sort + wash + dry + fold + put away the laundry, meal plan + grocery shop + prep + make dinner, throw some WD40 at that squeaky door. Go nuts with the unprompted helpfulness! Here’s a great list of household chores from Parachute if you’d like some ideas.

• Do things the first time you are asked, without needing a reminder. I know, I know it’s a bitchy sounding thing for me to say! And that’s why it’s not listed on any of the website links above, because they are being very very nice. Which is important. But so is honesty. And honestly, reminding people to do things is so stressful and if your partner is doing it it is stressing her the fuck out.

• Remember to take time for yourself. We love you and want you to be happy! And we want you to keep loving us, which means you need to not hate your life.

• Go to the gym and get those endorphins! They’ll help with general mood. Not to mention that we are probably not having sex with you (despite the fact that websites love to pretend that “increased libido” is a common side effect of pregnancy) and we are sorry … some extra endorphins may help? Again, sorry about the sex.

• Reach out to her relatives and friends and ask them to help you help her. It will make them very happy to be able to help, it will make her feel surrounded in a big-ole-hug, and it’ll help take the load off of you.

Buy for Your Partner or Request As A Gift

• This nausea care package from Sunflower Motherhood

• Or this one from Bump Boxes

• Something nice for yourself! You deserve a bit of treat-yo-self!

A gratitude practice.

If you have ever thought of picking up a gratitude practice, now’s a great time. There are a lot of ups and downs ahead and with everything being so overwhelming, the downs can drown out the ups. Which is bad for your health and your heart. According to health.harvard.edu:

In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.

And if HARVARD says it’s true, then it must be.

Short Reads

• Harvard Health Article, ”Giving Thanks Can Make You Happier”

• Berkeley Greater Good Article, ”How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain”

Do

• Say three things you are grateful for right now. Right now!

• Begin a gratitude journal (see two examples below)

Buy for Yourself or Request As A Gift

• The Five Minute Journal

• Papier’s Customizable Gratitude Journal

Pregnancy meditation apps.

What better time to finally get around to meditating? I know, I know, it’s that thing that we all know that we are supposed to do and never get around to but this just may be the time that it really is really helpful. Maybe even a pregnancy anxiety gamechanger?

Short Reads

• What to Expect Article, “Pregnancy and Meditation”

• Babylist Article, “Everything to Know About Pregnancy Meditation”

• Hypnobirthing International, “What is hypnobirthing?”

Do

Try out any of these meditation resources …

Expectful. A The Mental Health App for Before, During, and After Pregnancy.

Circle & Bloom. Healthy Pregnancy and Delivery.

Calm Birth App. Meditation for Pregnancy, Birth … and Beyond.

Headspace. The Pregnancy Pack.

Hypnobirthing. Meditation techniques for birthing. There are a lot of hypnobirthing courses that offer labor meditation tracks. Check out this list or this one.

Hypnobabies. Meditation & hypnosis techniques for birthing.

YouTube. So many options!

Tara Brach. Website. Podcast.

Vipassana Body Scan Meditation. 10minutes … 15minutes … 20minutes … 45minutes

Buy for Yourself or Request As A Gift

• Any of the resources above that are not free … which is most of them!

• An online or in-person meditation course

One heaping portion of decluttered home.

It’s time to Mari Kondo it up. Yes, again! There are a lot of reasons to declutter and generally organize now. Here are a few…(1) In the third trimester you will be more tired and may not have the energy to do it (2) When the baby comes you’ll be in the house a lot. It’ll be so much more pleasant if you’ve already spruced up a bit (3) A lot of “baby proofing” is really just decluttering. For a baby, everything is a toy and all toys go in the mouth. If you have a lot of stuff just laying around or things that don’t really have a home, ohhhhhh man good luck once they start crawling! (4) You will not have time/bandwidth to look for things and yelling to your partner “where the %*^$&! are the ^!@&$%!ing sponges?!? and the like five times a day will not be conducive to a harmonious family life. Figure out where the sponges should go now. (5) And perhaps the most obvious: babies come with stuff so get rid of some other stuff now to make room.

Short Reads

• Stanford Article, “How Less Clutter Can Reduce Stress”

• New York Times Article, "The Gurus of Tidiness"

• Mari Kondo’s Website, About the KonMari Method

• Today Article, "What is Swedish Death Cleaning and Should You Be Doing It?"

• The Fly Lady Website, “How to Declutter”

Long Reads

• Books by Mari Kondo, The First One, The Second One

• Book by Margareta Magnusson, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Make Your Loved Ones’ Lives Easier and Your On Life More Pleasant

• Book by Gretchen Rubin, Outer Order, Inner Calm

Do

• Clear off one cluttered surface in your home.

• If the space you’d like to declutter is feeling a bit too messy to start, that can cause overwhelm. Check out this 4-minute video.

• Schedule the first decluttering day.

• Invite a friend or family member over to help with one room or category.

TLDR: Effective Planning

I’m one of those people with lists of lists so, unsurprisingly, I’ve read a lot of books, articles, blogs, Reddit posts, etc. about effective planning. Here is what I’ve absorbed so that you don’t have to spend hours down that rabbit hole if you have other things to do or just plain don’t wanna:

A good plan is specific (see below, #s 1 & 2), has a defined schedule (#s 3 & 4), considers financial cost (#5), accounts for peoples’ skills (#6), and has an abort mission strategy (#7). See two examples below.

Example A—Executing a simple plan: “You do all of the laundry plz thx!”

At all points, aim to be flexible, kind, empathetic, open-hearted, and a creative problem solver. Writing the plan down is a magical power-up.

1. State the thing to be planned … I would like to not do laundry for a while because I feel overwhelmed/tired/pukey and having this taken off my plate would be helpful. Let’s make a plan for you to do the laundry for us until I feel better.

2. Break it down … “Laundry” = sorting, washing, drying, folding, and putting the laundry away.

3. When does the plan get done? How much time should be dedicated? … I wash clothes once a week. Linens and other stuff bi-weekly. I do it Sundays but you could do it whenever works for you. But, we could probably stretch clothes to every two weeks and everything else except towels to once a month if you prefer.

4. When does the plan start and complete? … Can you start next week? I think that in three months or so I’ll feel less overwhelmed/tired/pukey, so let’s talk about me taking the laundry back as my chore in three months.

5. Associated costs? … none in this example if you all split costs, but if you are asking a friend, family member, or anyone else with whom you do not already split costs, money should be discussed.

6. Knowledge & skill share … Should we do the first week or two together to ease the transition and so that I can answer any questions that come up?

7. Contingency plan … If it turns out that this just doesn’t work out, what’s our backup plan? Would you be OK with dropping off and picking up at a laundry service? Let’s Google to see how much that costs.

Example B—Executing an OMFG complex plan: “Let’s do the nursery before the baby comes!”

At all points, aim to be flexible, kind, empathetic, open-hearted, and a creative problem solver. Writing the plan down is a magical power-up. This plan is considered more complex than the one above because some things in step #2 would need their own little mini plans!

1. State the thing to be planned … Let’s have the nursery ready before the baby comes!

2. Break it down … Pick a room, empty the room out (trash, donation center, re-home items, store items), decide the furniture layout, do we want to make it a “yes” space?, research/select/sketch a design, paint the walls, get that hole in the window fixed, design/purchase-materials-for/paint the mural wall, pick/buy/hang curtain rods, pick/buy/assemble/install furniture, refinish your grandpa’s rocking chair, pick/buy/hang wall art, pick/buy/install shelving for the closet.

3. When does the plan get done? How much time should be dedicated? … Let’s work on things in the list above every Saturday (max 3 hours) until the nursery is done.

4. When does the plan start and complete? … Let’s start the action list this weekend and plan to be completely done in three months.

5. Associated costs? … Let’s try and have an overall budget of $2500. I’ll make a spreadsheet where we can write down what we’d like to spend on each thing to help us to meet that budget.

6. Knowledge & skill share … I’ll do the budget stuff because that’s my jam. You do the design stuff because you’re so stylish! Let’s call your brother-in-law to see if he can help with furniture assembly and the closet install - he’s so handy! I love Tabitha’s nursery closet system, so I’ll text her to see where she got that. Maybe your niece can make some nice wall art for her baby cousin? Can you text your sister to ask if she’d be into that? I think we should be able to take care of everything else ourselves.

7. Contingency plan … I’ve heard that a lot of people don’t get the nursery done before the baby comes. What is the bare minimum that we would want to have ready? Let’s make a list. Are there any other items on our list that we can have someone else do for us or pay someone to do? Let’s make a list.