I’ve heard it said that the main benefit of taking the full 6 weeks’ maternity leave before baby arrives is so we can adjust to full-time home life.

Because believe me, it is an adjustment.

Whether it’s the lonely sound of a ticking clock, or the fact that your day is no longer governed by the crisis of the moment in between seven consecutive meetings, this business of full-time huswifery takes a little getting used to.

My urge to nest coincided the week I stopped work in the corporate world. Which is perhaps cruel because when you’re shaped like a blimp, all you can really do when you see dust is to point and stare. Of course, you try and get on your knobbly hands and knees and get some dust-busting going… but you pay for it soon enough. I am still shaped like an inflated bowling ball propped up by Japanese chopsticks. Which means whatever little padding I had to begin with is now squished beyond redemption.

It no longer pays not to have a generous posterior. Ladies, God made us soft for a reason. This is the reason.

My latest party trick is the Movable Pelvis. Everyone goes on and on about the Happy Hormones and the muscle relaxants. No one actually mentioned how said muscle relaxants tend to loosen your body parts near the end – to the extent where you feel like you’re literally coming apart. It is physically ouchy to walk now. Or move in bed. Or dress myself. I actually snap, crackle and pop. It is most disconcerting, but my midwife is very pleased with my progress.

“My pelvic bone hurts like the dickens!” I wail.

“That’s wonderful!” she beams.

“I feel a little like I’m being hanged, drawn and quartered! I can’t breathe!”

“What great progress!” she enthuses. “You’re right on schedule, luv!” And then she goes on to take my blood pressure, and pronounces me textbook and boring.

So, physical limitations coupled with No Corporate Project makes this Jane rather schizophrenic. These 10 days have seen a new pattern emerge: I’ll “go hard” for a day or two, and then completely collapse in the house on day 3. By “go hard”, I might be

  • out at a doctor’s appointment in the morning
  • shopping at Koorong and Baby Bunting in the afternoon
  • grabbing lunch groceries at Woolies, on my way over to
  • FertilityFriend’s place for lunch and baby cuddles
  • stopping by Coles to do the grocery shopping on my way home, before
  • settling in to cook a semi-ambitious dinner.

Not rocket science. Very cushy, really. But I’m paying for it today. The thing is, the mind still remembers how crazy-busy I’ve been the last XX years of my life, and cannot buh-LEEVE that I can be wiped out so easily. So it pushes and pushes. Just one more load of washing. Just one little stop at the shops. Just one quick visit at a friend’s place.

But my bulbous belly can no longer take it. And it’s probably time I learnt to listen to my body.