Week 36: The one with no nursery

Just last week I saw a picture on Facebook of a friend’s nursery. She and her husband are having their fourth baby. (This will be their fourth girl!) The picture showed a perfect baby girl’s nursery; a beautiful white crib with pink and gray bedding. An equally beautiful dresser and changing table with a pretty pink changing pad on top. There was a fancy white chandelier hanging from the ceiling. And decorations on the walls. And pink curtains covering the windows. There was even most perfect little white whicker rocking chair in the corner. It looked like a picture out of a magazine.

This friend and I are both on our fourth pregnancies. All three of our other children are roughly the same age. So we’re in very similar situations in our lives. And she has a beautiful nursery all set for her baby who is due just six days before mine.

What have I done to prepare for my fourth baby’s pending arrival?

I bought a box of newborn diapers.

BAM! Done-zo. Totally ready.

I am the best.

I feel like I should be totally ashamed of myself. But I’m not. I think it’s mostly because I’m too tired to feel shame. Or maybe it’s because I’m a terrible mother who didn’t bother to decorate a beautiful nursery for my third baby so, really, the fourth baby never stood a chance.

Sorry fourth baby. I love you, but you’re not getting a fancy nursery. In fact, you’re probably not getting a nursery at all. I assume I will get around to buying a swing for you to spend most of your first eight weeks in. (If you’re here to tell me that I shouldn’t let my baby sleep in a swing, please just save your breath and go chastise someone else because I don’t care.) I will take that swing and put it upstairs in the bedroom that dad and I use as a closet. I’ll rummage up some blankets from the collection of 11 billion that we currently own. You’ll be fine. You won’t know any different. You’re a baby. At some point I will succumb to the pressure and move your 21-month-old sister into a big girl bed, and you can have her crib. But I’m just not feeling like I have the energy to do that right now. So I’ll put it off awhile longer.

Last night I started to panic because I don’t know where the baby bottles are. My husband pointed out that either we will find them, or we’ll go to the store and buy new ones. And while buying more of something that we already have plenty of does seem like a waste of money, I’m really tired and ordering new bottles on Amazon and having them delivered to my door seems easier than looking for the ones we currently own. Wasteful but convenient for the win!

So, while I’m super impressed by my friend and her ability to find the energy and time and desire to set up a nursery for the fourth time, I’m just not there. If my kids end up in therapy when they’re older, they can totally blame it on the fact that they didn’t have a catalog-worthy nursery.