It's finally happened...

... It's the last day of my maternity leave. Baby Badger is at the nursery until 2pm and I'm sat having a relaxing lunch (salad to be healthy followed by crumble because I can) and wondering what next week holds.

I blogged before about my concerns regarding going back to work, and they've not really changed. She's had a practice day with each set of grandparents and took no more than a couple of ounces of expressed milk, preferring to hold out for the source at the end of the day. She is adventurous with food, but still not eating large amounts. Taking into consideration that she's only put on 5oz in two months, I'm a little concerned: hopefully today's lunch at nursery will have gone a bit better than the first settling in session. If not we'll be continuing to shovel down full fat yoghurt after every meal (which she loves)!

I've been feeling quite upset about going back to work recently. The thought of leaving her with someone else, when she's been used to me pretty much all of every day for the last year. She's changing so much now, sometimes on a daily basis, and I'm loathe to miss out on it. She is so close to walking and I'd be disappointed not to see the first independent steps.

On a more selfish note, I've been dreading it because I'm expecting to be dead on my feet for the first few weeks. I hate mornings, and it's going to be a 6:30 start and out of the door at 7:30, with all three of us clean, dressed and fed. That seems like a herculean task! Then follows a day at work (where I spend my lunch break expressing in the medical room) before collecting Baby Badger on the way home. I'll be back before Father Badger most days, so I'll be flying solo for a while looking after her (which I assume I'll be looking forward to) and trying to get dinner sorted. And that's before I consider how on earth I get the vast quantities of laundry done.

This week, however, I've been feeling more positive. We've done several trial runs at the morning, getting up at 6:30 and ready for 7:30. We managed, although I'm pretty tired. Other than not eating enough food, the first two hour nursery session went well, as did the practice days with grandparents.

I think she's going to be ok. I just hope I am.

Image: Phiseksit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net