Early on in my pregnancy, a woman styling my hair told me I would become so obsessed with preparing a clean home for my baby that I would be on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush and then pulling  out the ladder to dust the chandeliers.  I politely disagreed, and not just because my home doesn’t have any chandeliers.

“You don’t know me.  I’m not the most domestic of women.  I find it hard to believe that I will ever feel the need to clean that badly.”

The hair stylist insisted.

“Just you wait.  It’s called “Nesting”.  It happens to all pregnant women.”

So I waited.  And waited.  I’m 37 weeks along today, and am still waiting for that whole nesting instinct to kick in.

Not going to happen.

Obviously I want to bring my baby home to a nice, clean living space.  But my idea of nesting is picking up the phone and dialing a cleaning service.  I find that to be much more efficient, and allows me to keep my hands free to for more important pregnancy activities, like eating.

I will admit that I did sort through piles and piles of papers and magazines in an effort to de-clutter the living space.  But that was mainly because my husband probably would have left me if I hadn’t.  And there are still plenty of piles left that I need to tackle.  (I hit a wall pretty early on in that process.  That tends to happen when I attempt to tidy up.)

Perhaps in my last few weeks of pregnancy that urge to organize closets and scour all my surfaces will strengthen, but I’m not holding my breath.   In the meantime, for anyone else lacking a nesting instinct like myself, here is what I recommend:

1) Buy Groupons for cleaning services whenever they are offered – which is all the time.  So worth it.

2) If you’re not into Groupons, direct your husband to all the chores you want done.  Why don’t more pregnant women utilize this tactic?  Having a huge belly, achy back, extreme fatigue, etc., etc. make bending over to tie my shoes a completely cumbersome task – don’t get me started on mopping floors and scrubbing toilets.  Right ladies?  Now is the perfect opportunity to make your husband do all that burdensome work and he can’t object because you’re carrying his child!  What’s a little housework compared to growing a baby in your belly for 40 weeks?

3) Have your mom come stay with you for a week.  My mom happens to be staying with me right now, and it’s like having a live-in maid!  I haven’t done laundry, dishes, or cooked a meal since she’s been here.  She has also completely reorganized my kitchen and took over nursery-preparation duties, since I had been slacking on that front as well.  This allows me to remain comfortably in denial about having a baby in a few short weeks while in the back of my head knowing that everything is taken care of when the inevitable happens.

Although I still have those piles to sort through…