I WAS sat here this morning thinking I ‘should’ probably write a couple of blog posts. Perhaps do a review before sharing some thoughts with you all this morning.

So after dropping Elsie off at school, I made myself a cup of tea, ate two slices of buttered fruit toast and tried to gear myself up for it.

And do you know what, I just couldn’t do it.

In fact, truth be told, I actually thought to myself “what the hell are you doing woman?!”

Because you see at 39 weeks+3 in pregnancy, I am now – to put it bluntly – pretty exhausted. On top of being emotional, impatient, nervous and incredibly excited for bambino’s arrival.

I wasn’t going to give myself official maternity leave from the blog but today I realised that some things are more important than trying to keep a blog updated every few days.

And one of those is having a baby!

Those of you that have been following my pregnancy will know that baby Portman is due anytime now which means in a few days or – at the longest – a few weeks, my life is going to radically change.

All being well, I’ll hopefully soon have a healthy baby boy to bring home, look after and love. Our family will go from a three to a more chaotic four. And I will be busy recovering from pregnancy and birth and finding my newborn parenting feet again.

And well, if that doesn’t deserve a little time off, then I don’t know what does.

So this morning as I tried to muster the energy to summon some creativity and write some blog posts, I had a light bulb moment and realised that for now, for me, it’s time to put the laptop down and give myself a well earned break.

Instead of writing, I should be relaxing. Instead of replying to emails, I should be preparing myself for giving birth. Instead of working and doing stuff, I should be enjoying some peace and quiet for myself.

Bringing a baby into the world is a phenomenally HUGE to thing do in life and so I think it’s only right I give this surreal period of waiting time the respect it deserves. So I’m off! Into late pregnancy hibernation to hide away for a while and prepare for what is to come, for me and my little family.

I will be back very soon when the time feels right and hopefully I’ll have the safe arrival of a beautiful, healthy baby boy to announce and plenty of newborn experiences to share.

In the meantime, I’ll still be writing my weekly piece for the brilliant BabyCentre (every Wednesday) so you can catch up with my pregnancy and birth tales there if you fancy and although I’m going to be ignoring my phone as much as I can for a while, no doubt I’ll still be popping up on social media most days too. (If you’re not following me already, you can catch me on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for starters.)

But on here, for a short time, you’ll have to please excuse my silence for a wee while as I waddle off into the sunset and go and put my tired and swollen feet up!

Thank you so so much for all the pregnancy and blog love you’ve shown me over the past few months. It really does mean a great deal to know so many people care and read what I put out there.

I’ll catch up with you all soon! Until then, take care and wish me luck!