I started my maternity leave on Monday. So far I haven’t exactly been taking it easy – I’m trying to finish off a new feature for Three Rings in time for the January release, I’ve just finished wrapping all the Christmas presents, I’ve started making desserts for Christmas, and I still have Tiny’s room to organise (at the moment all the baby stuff is just in a huge pile – whoever would have thought that something so small would need so many things?!).
But it’s still a pretty strange time. Sometime in the next four weeks, I’m going to be giving birth. It could start in 5 minutes, it could start next month. People who’ve done it are frustratingly vague about what it’s like, so it’s hard to find out what contractions feel like. There’s been a lot of weird stuff going on in my abdomen over the last week or so, every time I feel something new I find myself wondering whether it’s the start of labour.
I was going to celebrate all this free time by spending a whole half a day at the salon later in the week, but I was getting too stressed out about the possibility of needing to be in the hospital instead, so I cancelled it. Now I’m trying not to plan anything that can’t be easily cancelled at short notice. Heck, I had to change what I was making for Christmas dessert because one of the things I originally picked took several hours to cook and I started to worry that I might have to go to the hospital in the middle of baking, forget all about it and burn the house down.
Basically, at the moment I’m spending my time sitting around waiting for a life-changing thing that I have no idea what it will feel like which will happen some time in the next month. Whoop.
3 replies on “The waiting game”
” one of the things I originally picked took several hours to cook and I started to worry that I might have to go to the hospital in the middle of baking, forget all about it and burn the house down”
Yeah, you don’t want to leave your bun in the oven too long!
It’s horrible, isn’t it?
We’re booked in for a C-Section on Christmas Eve. Since Emma gave up work in November we’ve been waiting for it to happen earlier than that. But at least we have that known end date this time – last time it was worse. And made even worse by it being eight days late
I would say take it easy, but I don’t think you’re the taking it easy type 🙂
I got to the point of organising things in the hope I’d have to cancel them, because I thought that would make Miss Arianwen Lazy Bones arrive quicker. And thus I tell people that reflexology definitely works in bringing on labour – appointment was booked for Wednesday morning, waters broke Tuesday evening! (although she was still ten days late, the lazy mare) I don’t think we should be given a due ‘date’, just a due ‘fortnight’, would take the pressure off slightly.
As for what contractions feel like, obviously it would be different for everyone but mine felt like blinkin awful period pain, in regular short bursts.
Hope you get to enjoy your Christmas dessert first, and then it all goes quickly and smoothly 🙂
x
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