When to leave work?

That has been the question that has been plaguing me since Friday afternoon. I had to leave work early on Friday as I was falling asleep at my desk. I may not suffer from much back pain, cramps, nose bleeds, too bad constipation (thankfully that problem is well in hand now), or bladder problems. What I do suffer from is an overdose of tiredness; I wake up refreshed and happily go about eating breakfast and getting ready for work. Just when I’m about to leave the house I have an overwhelming NEED to crawl back into bed and sleep for the next 5 hours straight!

But I don’t I trudge down to the Train station and once on the train I can happily read my journey away. I can handle the hour train ride to the city, the books I read provide my mind with the escapism of the real world.
Once at work I achieve about an hours solid work, answering emails, working on documentation or Testing. Then about NOW I hit a wall where I feel the NEED to sleep again, perhaps it is now that people are finally arriving to work and the general discussion about weekends and evenings is discussed and I’m distracted.

To fight the feeling I eat a muesli bar that Bobim appreciates, and have a happily kicking baby for the next hour or so. I’m lucky that we have ‘flexible’ working hours here, which for me is a brilliant invention. Since returning to work in January I have not had a ‘proper’ lunch break, I eat my lunch whilst I continue working. It allows me the flexibility to arrive later but still leave around 4:30pm each afternoon. I still manage my required working hours, if there is a meeting in the afternoon, or I do have a lunch break then my afternoon is shot and I can’t work at all, or if I spend too much time in blog land or surfing. I hit a brick wall, there have been times most recently where I have nodded off for a few minutes typing in mid sentence.

It is not like I’m not getting enough sleep, most nights I’m in bed by 8pm sometimes earlier and sleep a good 8-12 hours depending if it is weekday or weekend. Even with the interruptions to the nightly toilet visits I still manage a good 2-3 hours at a time.

The more I progress through this pregnancy the more I know that this ‘tiredness’ will not get better. I had initially indicated to Management that I would leave work mid July, but since Friday I have been considering leaving at the End of June. I feel better about this decision, part of me can deal with the fact that I will be here May and June. July and August I will be at home nesting, doing nothing…whatever. Now all I have to do is tell my Boss.