NOW I am officially on maternity leave....

.....all the work "to do:s" are ticked...
.....the nursery is ready...
.....there is very little in the calendar up until delivery...

I am hoping this is not like for instance the flue - which seems to hang around until that second you complete your project/hand in your final report etc, and are ready to go on holiday before it breaks out......

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease give me at least a couple of days just "off" little bebe.... and then you are sooooooooooooooooooo welcome to join this world (if you can, please do so in as gentle a way as you can my love :-) We are very curious to meet you finally!!!

Week 36: One week of work to go, then what???

So now there is only one more week to go of work and then I start my maternity leave. What then? In Sweden this period is called to be "Mamma ledig" which means "Mommy time off" or something - but... Mom to whom? Time off to take care of what? This bump is meant to become a baby? What? How???? I thought it'd feel more real the later on in the pregnancy I got, but it seems to be the opposite. The closer due date I get the more surreal the whole birth thing gets.

Also feels incredibly weird to not be working for 9 months..... first time since I left University in June 94 that I haven't had a job lined up and even before then I was working all my summer holidays etc since I was 14.... Scary stuff - I define my personality quite a bit from what I do at work, and it feels a little bit like that part is taken away from me.....

Sure that when baby arrives the days will automatically fill up and I will not have any time or room for these thoughts. It's just now, lying about as too weak/dizzy to do anything else in this bl**** heat (please can someone turn the outdoor radiators off... can't stand this lethargy).

Week 35: Circus Belly

Wow. Had a circus group performing in my belly last night. The little one has always been pretty active at night but last night broke all records. There was somersaults, handstands, volts, and a fair few hick ups in between. Quite amusing to feel all the rumble and be able to see it as massive waves on my stomache as well... It will be a circus artist of sorts.... (and the fire would explain all the heart burn I guess...)

Quite happy s/he is so active still though (and doesn't seem to be "settling" for the canal trip ahead) as the H is going to the US for a business trip today - back on Friday. I have very reliable and enthusiastic back up in BB who now wants to be called a "doula" :-) but would kind of prefer to have the H there, not to mention how nervous he is about potentially missing our baby's first journey.

Crossing my legs this week alas!

Week 34: Are the Swedish "Raggare" right?

From BBC website today, the more generous UK maternity laws are damaging to womens' careers, and Mr "ancient type of business man" sir Alan Sugar comments t hat he would ignore CV:s from women in "childbearing ages"... see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7504637.stm

Women now get 9 months paid maternity leave, or another 3 months on top of that unpaid, and that is appearantly too long to stay competitive. Men get a whole 10 days paternity leave in the UK...

Also recently in the news, the church has the other week voted that they should allow women bishops in the UK.... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7494517.stm (yes, you read correctly, just the other week... in 2008...) and a lot of male (well.. obviously) bishops are now threatening to leave the church...

I simply don't know where to start..... Grrrrrrr..... Maybe the Swedish "Raggare" movement are right, things were simply better in the 1950:s when very few women worked outside their homes and didn't have the financial security to leave??? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raggare

Week 33: Discovery Channel material?

I feel as if David Attenborough should be following me in the bushes, whispering about "the pregnant females" behavior... "at this stage of the pregnancy, her movement will be more constricted... look at her wabbling walk and forward leaning posture. She would be easy prey for predators at this stage, so her mate tries to be close at all times..." Something like that anyways.

Not sure it makes any sense to anyone, but all this movement inside me, and the impending birth process (on all fours or squatting most likely...) etc, makes me feel very much part of the animal kingdom.

Week 32: "ME Vista"

Something just hit me. When I have been thinking about having babies in the past I have focused a lot of energy thinking about what I will have to give up, and how it will change my lifestyle and personality in a diminishing way and, up until recently obviously, said that I just can't get the equation to work out.

Now I am thinking that I am actually ADDING value to ME, as I am launching an UPGRADED version of me.... I will still be me... only better and more valuable.....

"ME, now also a mum" or something....