Let the Labour Watch Begin

Friday was my last day in the office. The next four days will be my earned vacation days, and then my maternity leave officially begins on May 8. I have ONE YEAR off — amazing! It feels so weird to exchange my working identity with my still unknown mommy identity. In the meantime, there's nothing to do but wait for labour. Well, that and clean and organize and make things as perfect as possible for my baby boy's arrival.

Not much else has happened since my last post. Last Friday I had a 24-hour sickness that I'm calling food poisoning. Someone kindly pointed out to me that vomiting and diarrhea can also be signs of early labour, so I had a minor panic over that on my way to see my OB for my regularly scheduled appointment. But she assured me that if I'm not having contractions I'm probably not in labour. Okay, that makes sense. I'm having a fair number of the belly-tightening episodes that I call Braxton Hicks contractions, but certainly no real contractions.

Finally, can I just say that my husband is awesome? He did four loads of laundry this morning before I even got out of bed. Yesterday he cleaned the bathroom, which is the one chore that is always mine. I hope to prevail upon him today to clean all the floors. He always does more than his fair share of the housework — and cooks dinner more often than not — but he has been outstanding in the last couple of weeks as my pregnancy has become increasingly cumbersome.

Yesterday we went out for a nice dinner to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. It's not until May 15, but we celebrated early for obvious reasons. Dinner was awesome — fantastic steak followed by "chocolate heaven" for dessert. When we got home, Keith handed me a card and a gift. We don't usually do anniversary gifts, and last year I didn't even get a card ("I didn't think we were doing cards"), so you can imagine my surprise. And he did good! It was a beautiful white gold chain with a heart-shaped diamond-crusted pendant. So pretty.

Here are some pictures:



And finally, a belly shot that I love (38w5d):