I’d originally planned to work up until my due date and shortly after school started I edited that to make my last day the week before. But last week was a bitch, y’all. Though certainly not aerobic, teaching middle school is physically demanding. And while it is incredibly hard to guess when I will actually go into labor, I decided to risk taking off too much time and being too rested in favor of going into labor after 6 hours of restless sleep and 9 hours of herding middle schoolers.
So, I am throwing the swollen, achy pregnancy towel in this Friday and starting maternity leave.
Teaching’s been hard for a while for a variety of reasons, most of which have nothing to go with my pregnancy. That has made it easy to focus on this incredible relief I feel when I think about being done for a while. But a part of me grieves, especially yesterday when my long-term sub was shadowing me and I realized that soon they would be “her kids” and not mine. And that greatest collection of colleagues I’ve ever worked with will be her’s too. Nuts.
Staying home with my kid for a while is a whole new, uncharted territory. I am excited. But as hard as it has been to get up and go to school some mornings, I can’t help but feeling I am giving up a piece of myself.
