Here Comes Maternity Leave!

That day has finally come :) - last day at the office before maternity leave. It feels like I'm going to leave that place forever although I'll only be away for 6-7 months. 

Yesterday was my last day at the office before I officially go into the "waiting period" before bubba arrives. Since morning, I was full-on training my maternity leave cover on my last day, making sure she's on top of everything - or at least get the gist of most of my task. We were quite late when we started the handover three weeks ago as I had a lot to handover and some of the tasks had to be done at a certain time or required certain files from other people. To make matters worse, I wasn't training her full time because she was also training her offshore counterpart and covering her manager who was also on leave at that time. Eventually, we only had around 1-2 hours of training each day for about 3 weeks. It was very unfortunate, because my manager already had everything planned carefully earlier in the year (even I had submitted the training plan back in February!) but that plan just went out of the window.

In the afternoon my colleagues threw me a temporary-farewell party (slash baby shower) as well on my last day. I was gifted baby singlets, jumper, baby toys, and a huge greeting card (thanks everyone!). And on the Monday before, my bird-loving colleague, Katrina, gifted bubba children's books by Australian authors (thank you! will definitely read them to bubba :)). At the party, many were commenting about how my bump is very much facing forward, indicating that it's a boy (well, that's what most people believed). Some were commenting how on Earth I was still able to come into the office although I'm due in two weeks! To be honest, it wasn't easy, especially that my bump is getting bigger and bigger by the day and standing up (from sitting position) is just hard, but I can't imagine myself just staying at home doing nothing.

At the end of the day, I finished training my maternity leave cover at 6pm - just in time when hubby arrived to pick me up. I packed the remainder of my personal belongings (I guess this is why it felt like I'm leaving the company once and for all) and said goodbye to anyone who was still at the office when I exited the building, which is actually not many people, LOL. 

Anyway, now I'm enjoying my quiet Saturday (with no hubby at home as well!). I'm trying to finish the "Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy" book, preparing myself for labour which can happen anytime now. Starting next week, there's no work that I need to think about. Hopefully I don't get the itch to open my work emails now that I have VPN access which means I can basically access the company's server and actually do some work remotely. And hopefully I will have some time to finally finish creating my wedding book (while Blurb is having 40% off) and sewing bubba's blanket before he arrives.