When the work is over

My last week at work.

It's over. I will be back, but I can't help thinking how momentous the closure of this 15-year-old chapter in my life is.

When I return, what will be waiting for me? What on earth will be going on inside my brain when I do go back? How will I be able to do the working mother thing?

Cart? Get back in the shed, we've got a horse to saddle up first. I am getting ahead of myself.

So my last day was February 10. I am due February 20. First of all, let me say that I am quite proud of myself - an inherently lazy person prone to naps and complaining OFTEN - that I actually made it to that date. I remember picking it out months ago to tell payroll...and part of me sheepishly thought I would more than likely leave a fortnight or so earlier. It just seemed so close.

But there, it is, I made it. I had a comfy chair at a desk and air-conditioning. Sure it broke down, but it was summer - it does that every year. I also had a huge goal of getting the maximum time off with our bubbalina after she is born. I didn't want to burn all my maternity leave bridges, especially when I haven't even crossed the whole labour one yet.

My brain managed to hold on to its journalist-wired functions - something I was quite shocked by. And I didn't make a complete fool of myself asking someone mid-serious interview, say, what their opinion of controlled crying was or the best remedy for cracked nipples. Although some days, I must admit, if more than three things happened at once (someone asked me something, my phone rang, an email popped up on my screen and I was half-way through writing a story) certain spheres of my brain would temporarily self-combust in overload mode and I would invariably have to apologise and run away to the toilet. Just to regroup. Oh, and empty my bladder for the 17th time that minute.

Everyone at work was lovely, supportive. I have some amazing friends there, good people who cried with me when we lost our baby in 2010. As they shared in our grief, so too do they share in our happiness and anticipation.

I was even treated to a "pink sugar" themed morning tea. That wasn't what it was officially called, but that's what sums it up. Every pink biscuit, cake, lolly, iced thing you could imagine was served on pink plastic plates with pink serviettes. Cute! I hope the doctors got it right!

I still wonder about our bub popping out sporting a between-the-legs protuberance we weren't expecting! It happens.

It was quite confronting and bizarre to clean out folders and folders of old emails (I am quite the hoarder) as well as my desk drawers and storage places. It was a great cleanse, but one I knew I couldn't commit to 100%.

I am not leaving that job for good. I will be back, in some form or another. At this stage, I will return in August. But anything could happen.

So I gathered up my timebook, voice recorder and a few personally signed business books that I might have time to actually read. They will make a nice change from all the pregnancy books! But I left the business cards of contacts, the stapler and a whole stack of pens for my replacement, who might need them.

It was quite thrilling to drive out of work on Friday night. I felt waves of nervousness and excitement.

Gone, completely gone, are weekdays I can plan out, organise, arrange. I don't really know what will replace them, but I can guess they won't be that structured as my previous life.

And that is actually quite liberating. Exciting.

I must admit, I have been getting ready for this next phase for a while now...ever since I was pregnant the last time. I don't know if all women are like that, but I could feel that I needed a change from the work routine. As comforting as that was, after years of it, I realised it wasn't as fulfilling as it had been in the beginning.

And now, we wait. And watch daytime TV. And spend too much time on the computer getting at least four different updates per hour on Whitney Houston. And do the dishes, cook, garden, swim, dust, tidy, nap, read. And wonder if that twinge is the start of labour. What that kick means...whether or not those damn endless hiccups signal something freaky.

Wondering when it's all going to happen.

I stood in the baby's room yesterday, eating watermelon. I looked down at my belly and then at the cot, which T and J had made up just that morning with pink gingham sheets and her new froggy slinky that J had chosen.

I looked from my belly to the cot and realised in a matter of days, weeks, she will be out of me and lying there.

Over. Whelmed.

Counting down? Yeah it's getting old

Hello friend.

Two more days and I will voluntarily take myself into an office about 2 minutes' drive from where I work and smile cheerfully while making small talk with a lady who will stick a big-ass shiny needle in my arm and suck out a vial of blood.

Yes, that's right, I am still on that IVF rollercoaster. Remember that one? Haha.

I must admit that the rollercoaster has certainly hit the languid phase these past few weeks. I'm sure I saw a documentary once about the thought that goes into the design of rollercoasters and how it was crucial that they had ups and downs, both in a physical and figurative sense: kind of like a metaphor for life, man. So there should be so many metres of track that were thrilling, so many metres that were frightening and so many metres that were...languid, subdued, the storm's calm canary.

Right now I am filled to the brim with excitement and the thought of...possiblity. I can once again feel the beginnings of a slow build to what I hope will be a thrill.

I keep imagining myself pregnant, a few months from now, looking back on these posts, reading through them and remembering how uncertain I was.

It feels different this time. First of all I honestly feel a lot calmer - well, today, at this moment, I do. I guess my head is not all stuffed to overflowing with scientists reports, embryo gradings, appointment times, cycle times, medication, instructions etc etc etc!

I mean, some of that is there, sure...but it's not new and freaky this time.

Secondly, this marks about the fifth straight day of dedicated exercise. Now, I like to be active every day. But that normally means a 25 minute walk and not a lot else, well, not outdoors anyway...

But lately I have been consumed with a bizarre urge to run, to get my heart pumping, to sweat and to push further than I normally would on a bike ride.

It's crazy. I am someone who hates hills - both as a pedestrian and a cyclist. I do not like doing the huffy puffy while wearing sneakers and trackies and, frankly, I don't like to run unless someone is chasing me.

But there I was the other night, yes, in the dark (such was my weird commitment) running up the street. Truthfully, I do walk-run-walk-run-walk-run, but I do run.

Anyway, I remember a moment during that run when a voice popped into my head.
"Stop," it said. "You should stop now and just walk the rest of the way home. Your breathing is getting quite laboured, is that a stitch starting to form in your chest? You might twist your ankle on a rogue bit of branch that has fallen on the path, just stop."

But then, some other random voice I don't believe I have heard before said: "Do not stop. Eyes up, look ahead and focus on the end of the road. Now go."

Well I was so shit-scared at the obvious indication that I had the Commando Army trainer from Biggest Loser in my head, that I sprinted the whole way home.

It does feel like I am suddenly training for some Olympic event...well some regional masters amateur athletics carnival...where I am the only one entered in my own category. I feel like I am in training. I feel driven to get my body prepared.

Will it work? Will it help this time?

I was going to write, will it make a difference. But I don't think that's a good way of looking at it.

I know from being a parent for more than two years that you can and will give yourself a one-way ticket to Crazy Town (with a stopover in Mental Hills) if: you take the word of every "well-meaning" advice offerer as gospel and if you think that various questionable sources of so-called reliable information (random forum postings anyone?) are, well, reliable.

Do what feels right at the time, I say. Do what matches your values and what you are 98% sure will have a positive impact on the situation/child/your body/whatever.

Life is nothing but guesswork. Inform those guesses with as much good quality information you can and you'll be fine.

Time

Grrr, is it Thursday yet?
If one more person asks me how I'm feeling, I will scream!
It's all my own doing, of course, and everyone's interest is so so lovely, but I have been thinking that I wish I had kept it quiet.
I have been thinking of a friend of mine in high school actually.
She was so paranoid of failure and looking like an ass that she didn't tell anyone she was going for her driver's licence test.
Then, on the day, she actually got it - it ended up being a big surprise for everyone.
She had the Cheshire cat thing going on and we all thought she was amazing...

In our situation, everyone from close family to aquaintances at work know pretty much the minute and the hour that little embryo went in.
And, granted, I have been pretty forthcoming with all the details on this blog...
So, I can't turn back time, I can't change it...but I wonder if it adds to the worry levels.

What if something goes wrong? What if I don't get pregnant this time (sorry, broken record, I know)? I guess I have to focus on the thought that my open disclosure will mean I have a wider support net to draw on, a larger comforting blanket to wrap around me, if something...disappointing happens.

I keep asking T to rack her brains for how she felt at this time all those years ago. Did her belly ache, did her boobs hurt, did she feel sick...???

People are asking me how I feel, if I feel sick, if I am having cravings. Then I say no, because I feel really well and my normal old self. Then that makes me freak out a tiny bit inside.

Mums who have been before me are good at the follow-up soothe, saying "it's a bit early yet". And I cling to those words.

The pregnancy test is on the bathroom counter. I look at it every time I am in there and continue counting down the minutes until Thursday.