My job involves a lot of travel. Giving it up during pregnancy was much harder than I expected.

Giving up travel was a difficult moment: doing the work without getting to deliver it is like training for a race you never get to run.  

The midwife having banned flying, my last foreign trip was to Paris by train.  By that stage, if I'm honest, it was exhausting - and my ample tummy barely squeezed behind the little tables that flap down so you can eat dinner.  Yet, I still struggled to let go when I read the following email on the Eurostar home:

'We are busy going through the process of ensuring we get short-listed on South Africa’s biggest pitch this year. Can we get you out here for the pitch to demonstrate our commitment, and you get to work off that IOU?  Have no idea when pitch will be, probably next month.'

I owed them because I’d postponed an earlier trip due to morning sickness.  I reluctantly replied: 'Would love to but officially designated Too Fat to Fly. If you put it off til February will bring Junior for his/her first taste of Africa.'

When I got home I unpacked my travel bag. It was like the end of the sixth form: you know you’ve been through a lot, but you don’t know what you’ve achieved, and you sure as hell don’t know what comes next. I put away the adaptors and the travel pillow; chucked out the tiny bottles of shampoo and toothpaste; stashed my washbag in a remote cupboard and cast my passport into the documents drawer. It felt good, but strange – like I was letting go of a piece of myself.  I still don’t know where and when my next business trip will be.

That night I slept for 13 hours.  In the morning I lay in bed with my husband and giggled about my lopsided tummy (at this point our baby was wedged firmly on the right hand side).  We talked about cots and prams and car seats, and I started to reconnect with the wriggling being inside of me.

By way of consolation, when I went back to the office the following Monday, I found three copies of Serbian Playboy waiting for me – including a half page photo (no, don’t even think it) along with a three-page interview on the downturn’s impact on different groups of European consumers.  There’s lots of comment about this PR milestone, mostly involving the line ‘Men only buy Playboy for the articles, you know’. Pregnant and in Serbian Playboy.  Not a line I ever expected to appear on my CV, but it brightened up my first non-travel week.

When your subconscious starts playing tricks on you, maybe it's time to cut down on the travel...
 
I woke in a panic, reaching for my husband.  I had dreamt I’d had our baby in the morning and then gone to the office for the afternoon, before popping by UCH on my way home to pick the baby up from a tetchy nurse.  It was detailed and cinematically vivid; when I woke my heart was racing hotly.  But my husband wasn’t there.  I was at the Intercontinental in Dusseldorf, alone.  Well, not entirely alone; our baby kicked suddenly.  Perhaps to register its objections on being born to such a crap mother.   

I read on babycentre.com once that sleep expert Mary O'Malley says: "Dreams reflect your emotional reality.  Pregnancy brings up positive and negative feelings that you'll digest through your dreams."  Hmm.  In the morning, I shared my dream in light conversation with two close German colleagues, who were shocked.  When will you give up work, they ask.  When will you stop travelling?  Perhaps the dream sensitised me to their suggestion that I was already pushing it a bit.  Perhaps the imminent airline requirement of a letter of permission from my doctor to fly was also a clue.  Or perhaps it was the kindly taxi driver the day before in Amsterdam who, with the directness the Dutch are famed for, suggested I cancel my meetings and head straight home to rest and ready myself for my baby.  

Unlike their more southern neighbours, the Germans tend not to directly comment on the bump.  When introduced to the large group I was to present to, no mention was made of my state and I felt no compulsion to raise it.  I sailed through the presentation; imminent motherhood had inspired me with a confidence that age has thus far failed to deliver.  A robust debate followed, and people came by afterwards to discuss and clarify points.  The leader of a local account asked if I would present to her clients. “Only if they come to London,’ I replied.  She nodded and smiled, but neither of us voiced the reason why.

At the very end, as the room cleared, the oldest woman at the meeting came towards me.  We hadn’t been introduced.  She thanked me for the presentation and then paused, locking her focus onto my eyes: “But this, this, is the most wonderful - and important - thing you will ever do... Take care to enjoy it” she said, reaching out and all but placing her hands gently on my stomach.  

I packed up and headed out, the guilt all working mothers talk of starting to seep through my veins:  Tracy Hogg (The Baby Whisperer) says “Guilt is the curse of motherhood.” Considering this I decided to actively reject the guilt of motherhood and, as I flew home, allowed my mind to focus on revising the slides for the following weeks’ presentations in Geneva and Boston.

Even then, long before our baby arrived, I knew this particular resolution would prove futile.