There is nothing more exciting than the count down to your final days at work before beginning your maternity leave. For so many pregnant women these final few days and weeks can be stressful, and this really needn’t be the case.The important thing is to plan your departure early. Weeks before you leave you and your boss should be discussing how things will continue in your absence. Ultimately this is not your concern, but to leave in the knowledge that someone is carefully tending to your role and responsibilities can reduce some of the stress when you finally do leave!

Making lists is always useful, I found when I went on maternity leave a year ago that preparing a folder of ‘handy hints’ for my replacement was an invaluable tool. Not only did it help me structure my departure, funnily enough it made my boss realize just how much I do in my role!

In the latter days of pregnancy things can be tiring. What you may have found easy to do before pregnancy can become an every day struggle in the final few weeks. For some reason us women can be a little stubborn when it comes to accepting hep from others, with the ‘girl power’ attitude many of us like to be seen to be coping, even if were not! Take extra breaks if you need to, go for a stroll outside, or even go and put your feet up somewhere and have a ‘cat nap’, believe it or not all of these things are a pregnant woman’s privilege you may just not realize it.

Enjoy you last day, and if you’re having a baby shower as many women find this can be an emotional event. With all those pregnancy hormones floating around it is easy to become tearful at the slightest thing! Make arrangements to keep in contact while you are off, although you may be glad to see the back of your place of work when you do leave, keeping in touch will eventually make the dreaded return to work ten times easier as you won’t feel like you’ve been abandoned or left out.