So as I was leading up to my due date I couldn’t help but get excited.
Now I knew in reality it could well be another week at least before the little man turned up but I couldn’t help but overanalyse every single twinge I felt. Kyle jokingly said that it was like when he was waiting for his PS5 to show up and every car outside he heard he thought was the delivery… yeah totally the same right! 😉
I still felt very comfortable and realistically nothing was happening inside me to make me think anything was to happen soon. I was eating my dates and drinking my raspberry leaf tea like nobody’s business. I bounced on my birthing ball in the evening and tried to keep all the oxytocin coming.
Due to a HR cock up, I found out the day before my due date that I was actually supposed to go on maternity leave from my due date, not when the baby arrived like I’d planned.
So this suddenly meant I was on my last day. This made things somewhat stressful and annoying. And I was potentially going to lose some valuable time with the baby on the other side. If the baby took his time I could be looking at almost two weeks off without him, and me going out of my mind with boredom!
But actually in the end it worked out well as it meant I could neatly hand over all my work and feel like I’d tied up loose ends as well as potentially have some days to focus solely on me and relaxing before the craziness began. After all, I wouldn’t have that kind of time again for a long while.
During that day I also met up at lunch with my two lovely friends, Emma and Cortney, who’d come down to briefly see me before the baby arrived (or see the baby if he had arrived!).
It was lovely to see them and grab a quick coffee during the day. They brought me doughnuts which was very much appreciated!
To maximise my new maternity leave, I decided to meet my friend Kim for a coffee and a walk the next day (Wednesday, my due date). She’d just had her little boy (4 weeks earlier – we planned this very well!) so it was lovely to see her and it took my mind off still being pregnant.
I also scheduled in a pedicure with my mum on the Thursday. A lovely mum and daughter pamper session. Kyle and I also had plans to go to our favourite greasy spoon for a fry-up on Saturday morning and had doughnuts ordered for Sunday.
Basically it was important for me to have non-baby things to look forward to so I could stop focusing on when I was going to give birth. And I could enjoy all this free time doing the things I loved.
Generally speaking I still felt comfortable and happy in myself. My sleep wasn’t great but it was good enough. I was now solely sleeping on my left (rather than swapping the sides through the night) as my bump was just too large to roll over and it would feel a bit weird as I turned as well. I also kept waking up at 3-4am and lying there wide awake. But I accepted it and made myself a cup of tea and enjoyed the early morning peace.
Well, spoiler alert, but I didn’t have to “waste” much of my maternity leave at all it turns out. The little man soon made an appearance… I’ll recap that in another post 🙂
if you went on maternity leave, did you have long off before the baby arrived?
Did you try to encourage labour in any way beforehand? It all sounds like old wive’s tales to be honest but it helps to feel like you’re doing something!
I can’t imagine working up to the due date, but in teaching it’s a bit different as you’re on your feet all day/ with the children which is tiring anyway- most people would go off a few weeks before their due date and then spend that time doing all the things that don’t get done in term time. But it’s good that you got to fit in a few nice things before he made his appearance.