By the time you’re reading this, I’ll hopefully be lying on the sofa with a tiny newborn*. This is my last week at Stylist before my maternity leave begins, but I still can’t quite get my head around what’s about to happen. Will I miss having a foot permanently lodged under my rib cage as I cycle to work? Probably not. But I do like how the baby and I go everywhere together all the time. By the time I’m back commuting, I’ll be riding solo again.
This limbo between reaching full-term and waiting for labour to begin is a bit like the tapering period before a marathon. You’ve done months of training, you’re physically feeling ready to go and you’ve reduced all activity, but you have no idea when the big day is going to be. I’m nearly at 39 weeks, but it could be another three before this baby decides to make an appearance, and no race plan can help with mentally managing that.
The last time I popped up in this email, I’d just reached my second trimester and was talking about the privilege of being able to exercise while pregnant. I hope to be on the move until the very end (not least because I’ve heard that hill walking is great for getting things going at crunch time).
One thing I’m trying to do is surround myself with positive birth stories, and that’s one great thing about working at Stylist – it’s full of women who not only have had good experiences, but they also seem to really enjoy being mums. Sure, I hear about the nursery-induced vomcanos and sleepless nights, but everyone seems so content with their family setup, which is a world away from the cynical (and often depressing) depiction of motherhood you see on TV and social media.
And that’s the great thing about this email: it covers the good, the bad and the ugly while also celebrating the magic of bringing tiny people into the world.
Looking to the future: when our baby’s here, settled and jabbed, the plan is to head to Portugal for a month. My partner only has two weeks’ leave, so I figured I might as well be holed up by the beach with a cool sea breeze than sweat the summer out in a box flat alone. As I sit here, I’m mulling over how people manage to take babies through airports with prams, nappy bags, luggage, duty free shopping, etc, so any advice would be most welcome!
Miranda Larbi
Strong Women editor (…and new mum!)
Editor’s note: the team here at Stylist would like to congratulate Miranda and her partner, Lorin, on welcoming their baby to the world last week!
