Seed: 34 weeks.

Hitting 34 weeks feels like taking this pregnancy to a whole new level. No joke.

I AM OFFICIALLY ON MATERNITY LEAVE!

Look. At. That. Bump. Smile.

If I'm honest there were times when I doubted myself if I really could do it - doctoring while being heavily pregnant. The tiredness, the stress, the lack of sleep.. Everything! I even wondered what would happen if I took the last 2 days off because I was in so much discomfort over the weekend that by Monday I was just exhausted.

But I made it through, Alhamdulillah!

Speaking of the weekend, here's what happened. Braxton Hicks. Yes, Braxton Hicks was what happened. I've had them before, so it's not like I didn't know what was coming. But over the weekend they were so strong and frequent and lasted for what felt like hours! My bump could go rock solid for a very long time, that sometimes I found myself doing the deep slow breathing just to ease it off. 

Btw Braxton Hicks are false contractions in preparation for the actual labour. They're often irregular without any pattern. Not particularly painful, but CAN be very very, very, uncomfortable.

I rang the midwife on Monday just to check if what I had was normal - first pregnancy, not a clue. She advised that it did sound like my tummy was just practicing for the actual day, so nothing to be worried about. And Seed's been moving fine too, not that I'm overly worried anyway. I think I was just so exhausted from the discomfort, more than anything. It's easing off now, thank God.

Speaking of Seed, we can often feel his feet sticking out just under my ribs a lot of the times. It's pretty funny because I like to poke them and he would then kick back in annoyance (I imagine). Haha.

Adam and I also went to an antenatal class aimed for first time parents last week. Free on NHS, so why not. 

And the class was.. Okay. I was hoping for more practical advice, like real-life solution for things. But it was a lot of medical facts, e.g. stages of labour, pain relief ladder.. Most of them I already knew. I guess it'd be more useful for laypersons, not quite for those who are well-acquainted with hospital and medical stuff.

I am now sitting in bed typing this while thinking of the amount of chores to tackle while I'm off. It's very tempting to think that I've got all the time in the world to do them, but so far my only achievement are cooking lunch and doing one load of laundry.

Hoping for a more productive me soon. Phew.