The first week of maternity leave was punctuated primarily by phone calls from my loved ones; “Any news? Any twinges? Anything!?!” I spent the entire week fielding calls and staying close to home in the distinct fear that at any moment this baby COULD ARRIVE. Which meant I did the sum room of f*** all.
The highlight of my week was going grocery shopping, the low point was where I cried unconsolably most nights because I was frustrated, missing work and mostly, missing my ‘normal’ life. I wrote a piece on it (available here), I made some flapjack, ate my body weight in that and any other sugary foods (no mean feat at this stage) and went back to counting down the hours until my husband came home. I was the definition of miserable.
This week I was determined to do things differently. For starters, I hit my due date. It came and went with very little fanfare – no twinges, no breaking waters, not even a hint of labour. Which made sense when I went to my 40 week appointment and low and behold… no cervical activity. Nothing. Nada. My body is apparently exceptional at being pregnant. It’s just not quite so hot on prepping for labour. We talked about possible induction and the fact that she felt there was no point in seeing me until next week. I came out of there feeling a million times worse than when I went in, had my usual cry to myself (I swear I don’t cry this much normally) and then thought about things… Now I knew I wasn’t likely to drop a baby this week surely that meant I could enjoy myself a bit more? Aside from living on the edge by spending my whole trip to the supermarket convinced my waters were about to burst I could actually leave the house properly. For fun. *gasp*
That moment right then is when maternity leave started to become more of an enjoyable process. Yes, I still stayed in bed until 10am, except this time it wasn’t because I was trying to fill the day. I was there because I wanted to be and god damn did it feel good. I watched an entire season of ‘The Good Wife’. Well, why not?! I made plans to see people, walking along the beach in the sunshine and treating myself to a cheeky iced milkshake on the way back.
It helped that the weather has been great the last few days and there have been more people around. But also, I finally made some peace with the fact that this baby has it’s own schedule and whilst I would love for it to appear shortly (Any time now baby, please, mama wants her ability to put shoes on back!)
Thats not to say that I haven’t been desperately trying every trick possible to help chivvy things along. I’ve bounced nightly on my birthing ball, run up and down the stairs as much as my battered pelvis and hips can take, I’ve eaten tubs of pineapple (yum!) but have to admit to thus far avoiding hot curries (what can I say? I’m a wimp and frankly terrified that it’ll cause me to go into labour with curry shits during the pushing stage). We have walked everywhere and anywhere – in fact I’m probably the fittest I’ve been in a good few months after the miles of snails pace walking we’ve done.
So for now we’re still patiently waiting. It’s 40+2 this morning and I feel like I’ve gone backwards in terms of signs. My brother arrives from Australia on Thursday and my father in law arrives from the Middle East on Friday so in an ideal world I would love to be welcoming our little one in the next 3-4 days so we can maximise their time together. With that said, I’m off to bounce on my ball and eat some more flapjack… because… well why not?!
Happy Weekend lovelies!
DM x
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