I Was Eight Months Pregnant When I Almost Stepped On A Mouse At 1 AM. My Husband Went Back To Sleep. I Never Did.

There were two of us in that dark hallway that night me and the mouse. My husband dealt with it in thirty seconds and forgot about it by morning. I spent the rest of my pregnancy trying to make sure it never happened again. This is what finally worked.

Megan Calloway, 31  ·  Boise, IdahoFirst-time mom  ·  Homeowner

It was 1:14 AM.

I was 34 weeks pregnant, which meant I was waking up two or three times a night to use the bathroom.

I didn't turn the light on.

I'd made that trip a hundred times in the dark. My feet knew the way.

My right foot came down about two inches from it.

I felt it before I saw it — the sudden movement, the tiny mass of warmth against the side of my foot.

I let out a sound I didn't know I could make.

And then I was in the bedroom doorway, back against the wall, both hands over my stomach, shaking.

My husband Ryan sat up. "What happened?"

I couldn't say it. I just pointed at the hallway.

He got up. He turned on the hall light. He found it — cornered near the bathroom door.

He killed it with a flip-flop he grabbed from the mat.

He picked it up in a paper towel, dropped it in the bin outside, washed his hands.

He came back to bed.

"It's gone. Come back to bed."

He was asleep again in four minutes.

I was awake for the rest of the night.

And the night after.

And the night after that.

The Same Night. Two Completely Different Experiences.

Ryan was not wrong to go back to sleep.

He had solved the problem in front of him.

The mouse was dead. The floor was clean. Everything was fine.

Here is what he didn't understand.

What Ryan Experienced
What Megan Experienced
At 1:14 AM A minor problem to solve. Solved it.
At 1:14 AM Nearly stepped on something alive in the dark while 34 weeks pregnant.
Next Morning Already forgotten. Just a mouse.
Next Morning Where did it come from. Are there more. Did it go near the nursery.
That Week Normal. Set one trap under the sink to be safe.
That Week Checking every room before entering. Light on before feet touch the floor.
Sleep Quality Unaffected. Back asleep by 1:20 AM.
Sleep Quality Gone. Every sound in the walls a potential replay of that moment.
The Nursery A room down the hall. Ready for the baby.
The Nursery A room where my baby will sleep on the floor in two months. With gaps in the baseboard I hadn't noticed before.

He wasn't dismissing me.

He genuinely did not feel what I felt.

And I couldn't explain it in a way that would make him understand.

Because the fear wasn't really about the mouse.

It was about the baby coming home in six weeks to a house I wasn't sure was safe.

Every Solution I Looked Up Was Off The Table

I spent the next three nights researching instead of sleeping.

Which was fine, because I wasn't sleeping anyway.

Here is what I found.

⚠ Why Every Conventional Solution Was Wrong For My Situation

☠

Rodenticide bait blocksAnticoagulant rodenticides are classified as Category C in pregnancy — meaning risk cannot be ruled out. Any contact with bait, surface residue, or a poisoned mouse is a concern. My OB said no. Full stop.

🪤

Snap trapsLegal, safe in theory. But snap traps require someone to check them, remove dead mice, reset them. I was 34 weeks pregnant with sciatica. Ryan worked 6 AM starts. The traps would go unchecked for days.

📡

Ultrasonic devicesThree studies, three conflicting conclusions. Some evidence that ultrasonic frequencies affect developing fetal hearing at certain intensities. My OB wasn't worried, but I was.

💰

Professional exterminator$375 initial visit, $265/month ongoing. The standard treatment uses anticoagulant bait stations placed in areas I crawl past on hands and knees assembling nursery furniture. Again: my OB said no to any rodenticide in the home while I was pregnant.

❓

Essential oil cotton balls (DIY)Tried it. Every corner of the kitchen smelled of peppermint for about 18 hours. Then nothing. I found a new dropping behind the stove on day three.

I sat at my kitchen table at midnight.

34 weeks pregnant.

A house that might have more mice.

A nursery at the end of the hall.

And a list of solutions I couldn't use any of.

I had never felt so alone in a problem in my life.

Why The Fear Wasn't Irrational

21M

American homes invaded by mice each yearMouse urine and droppings can carry Hantavirus, Salmonella, and Lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) — the latter of which is specifically listed by the CDC as a risk during pregnancy, associated with miscarriage and birth defects when transmitted in the third trimester. The fear was not hormonal. It was medically documented.

Ryan read that with me at the kitchen table the next morning.

He stopped calling it "just a mouse" after that.

What I Found At 2 AM On A Pregnancy Forum

Night four after the incident.

2:08 AM.

Baby pressing on my bladder. Phone in hand. Can't sleep anyway.

I typed: "rodent repellent safe during pregnancy" into a search bar.

I found a thread on a pregnancy forum.

A woman — 36 weeks, first baby, same fear — had asked the same question six months earlier.

She'd had the same experience. The mouse in the dark. The husband who went back to sleep. The OB who said no to poison. The DIY peppermint that lasted a day.

"The only thing that actually worked for me was PestLab Rodent Repellent Pouches. They're plant-based — peppermint, cinnamon, castor oil, cedarwood. My OB cleared them immediately. No poison, nothing to handle, no mechanism to fail. I just opened them and put them where I'd seen activity. Mice haven't been back in three months."

Fourteen other women in the thread had replied saying the same thing.

I ordered them at 2:11 AM.

Somewhere in Idaho, Ryan was asleep.

I had already solved the problem he thought was already solved.

Why This Was The Only Option That Made Sense

PestLab™ pouches don't catch mice.

They don't poison them.

They don't require me to touch anything that has touched a mouse.

They make the treated space unlivable for mice without introducing a single toxin into my home.

That was the entire list of requirements I had.

🌿 Four Plant-Based Ingredients. Zero Toxins.

🌿

Peppermint oilOverwhelms a mouse's olfactory system at close range. The treated space becomes unreadable to them — they avoid it rather than enter it. Safe for humans at the concentrations used. My OB's response when I read her the label: "That's fine."

🌿

Cinnamon oilDisrupts the pheromone trails mice leave to guide other mice in. No trail, no colony following the first mouse. No mechanism that requires me to do anything after placing it.

🌿

Castor oilA slow-release carrier that keeps the active concentration working for 30–90 days. Not the 18 hours of a DIY peppermint cotton ball. The difference between a barrier and a gesture.

🌿

Cedarwood oilA centuries-old botanical deterrent used in storage and textiles. No synthetic compounds. Nothing that wasn't in someone's grandmother's linen cupboard.

The entire pouch smells like peppermint and cedar.

To me, it smelled like clean.

To a mouse, it's a wall they won't cross.

And to my baby, arriving in six weeks — it's nothing.

Because there is nothing in it that is anything to a baby.

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Where I Put Them — Starting With The Nursery

The pouches arrived two days later.

I placed the first one in the nursery.

Behind the crib, against the baseboard where I'd noticed the gap.

Then I worked through the rest of the house methodically.

🛏

NurseryBehind the crib, against the gap in the baseboard. First one placed. The most important one.✓ First priority

🚿

Hallway bathroomThe exact spot where it happened. Pouch inside the vanity cabinet, against the pipe penetration.✓ The incident location

🍽

Under kitchen sinkBoth sides of the drain pipe. This is the primary entry route in most homes.✓ Primary entry point

🧺

Laundry roomBehind the dryer, near the vent where it connects to the outside wall.✓ Second entry point

🚗

GarageAlong the shared wall and both corners near the side door. Mice stage here first.✓ Staging area

🥫

Pantry floor cornersBoth back corners, at floor level. Where I had found droppings after the original incident.✓ Known activity

Total time: about twelve minutes.

No chemicals. No gloves. No bending awkwardly over traps.

Nothing Ryan needed to come home early to deal with.

Nothing that required me to touch or handle anything dead or dangerous.

Just open, place, and walk away.

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What Happened — Before Isla Arrived And After

Night 1–4

The incident. The sleeplessness. The research. The list of solutions that didn't work. Ryan's trap under the sink catching nothing. The scratch I thought I heard in the nursery wall at 3 AM that may or may not have been real.

Night 5

Found the forum thread. Ordered PestLab™ at 2:11 AM. First night I stopped researching and actually slept — three hours, but still. Something to try. Something that was actually available to me.

Day 7

Pouches arrived. Placed all six in under fifteen minutes. Kitchen smelled faintly of peppermint. No anxiety about placing them. No gloves, no instructions more complicated than "tear and place."

Day 10

Checked every placement point. No new droppings anywhere. No scratching sounds overnight. Checked the nursery baseboard three times. Clean. This was the first morning I didn't check on waking up.

Week 3

No signs anywhere. Replaced the garage pouches — they were in a high-airflow area and the scent had faded. Two-minute task. My OB appointment that week — I mentioned the pouches. She nodded. "Good choice," she said.

Isla's birthday

Born at 6:42 AM, healthy. Came home to a house with six PestLab™ pouches and zero signs of activity. She has never encountered a mouse. She is now eight months old. She never will — not in this house.

Isla came home to a house I was certain about.

Not hopeful. Not probably fine. Certain. That certainty — earned with $59.99 and twelve minutes of my time at 34 weeks pregnant — is worth more than I have words for.

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What This Is Really About

If you're pregnant and you're reading this at 2 AM…

I know exactly where you are.

I know the phone is too bright for the room but you can't put it down.

I know your husband is asleep and the problem feels completely yours to solve.

I know you've already Googled "are mice dangerous during pregnancy" and you've read about LCMV and you wish you hadn't.

I know the fear isn't irrational.

It never was.

You're not being hormonal. You're growing a person in a house that might not be safe, and you cannot afford to be wrong about it.

PestLab™ pouches won't solve every problem.

But they are the only rodent deterrent I found that:

  • ✓Contains zero rodenticide, neurotoxin, or synthetic chemical — my OB cleared it in under a minute
  • ✓Requires no handling of dead animals, no daily checking, no bending over traps
  • ✓Works passively for 30–90 days once placed — no maintenance during the exhausting newborn weeks
  • ✓Leaves no residue on floors, surfaces, or anything a crawling baby will touch
  • ✓Eliminates the scent trails that guide new mice in — prevention, not just reaction
  • ✓Safe around newborns, toddlers, cats, dogs, and all household pets
What I Spent Before PestLab™
Snap traps (unused) $18
DIY peppermint oil $14
Exterminator consultation $0*
Four nights of sleep lost Priceless
Certainty about the nursery None
After PestLab™
PestLab 3-pack (36 pouches) $59.99
Time to place all six 12 mins
Dead animals to handle Zero
Signs since placing Zero
Certainty about the nursery Complete
*Exterminator quoted $375 + $265/month but I couldn't use their standard treatment while pregnant.

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More than 140,000 families are finally sleeping without scratching in the walls…

but is it really worth your attention?

★★★★★

The only option my OB didn't immediately rule out

I was 28 weeks pregnant when we discovered mice in the kitchen. My OB vetoed every conventional treatment. I found PestLab through an online pregnancy community and she gave them an immediate green light — plant-based, no toxins, nothing that required me to handle anything. Placed them throughout the house, no new activity since. My daughter is four months old now and has never encountered a mouse. Worth every cent for that peace of mind alone.

— Amanda C., Portland, OR

★★★★★

My husband thought I was overreacting. He was wrong.

Pregnant with our second when I found mouse droppings under the kitchen sink. My husband set snap traps and considered it handled. I spent two weeks reading about LCMV and hantavirus while he slept soundly. PestLab pouches were the only thing I found that didn't require me to handle dead animals, use chemicals, or leave anything on the floor that a crawling toddler could reach. The problem resolved within ten days. I've kept them placed ever since — including now with a newborn in the house.

— Sarah K., Denver, CO

★★★★★

I found these at 1 AM on a pregnancy forum and ordered immediately

Third trimester, couldn't sleep, heard scratching. My husband was on a work trip. I spent four hours reading about what mice can carry during pregnancy and then found PestLab in a thread where another third-trimester mom had used them. Ordered, placed them when they arrived, and have had zero signs since. My son is now three months old. I replace the pouches every month. It takes four minutes and costs less than a takeout order. I recommended them to every pregnant friend I have.

— Jessica M., Salt Lake City, UT

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You have two options:

1Keep lying awake listening. Hope the snap trap Ryan set catches whatever is in the walls. Live with the uncertainty about the nursery until the baby comes home.

2Tear open a PestLab™ pouch. Place it in the nursery. Place the rest at every entry point. And know — actually know — that you've done everything you can.

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Isla is eight months old.

She crawls now. Everywhere. Including along the baseboard in the hallway where it happened.

There is nothing there for her to find.

There hasn't been since the week I placed those pouches.

Ryan helped me replace them last month.

He's converted. He understands now.

She will never know this happened. That was always the point.

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