It's raining - 23wks 1day

It's raining, in fact it's a full on thunderstorm this morning. This is a good thing, it hasn't rained in about a month and with summer comming on, things were getting a bit dry. I wish I could show you what it looks like out the window near the terminal I'm using. I'm on the second floor of the science library at ANU and the window looks into the centre courtyard. There's the very red brick used for the sidewalls of the courtyard, the bold yellow surrounded by white and gray shapes of the front of the library (it's a uni building, therefore it is kinda distinctive), the mottled bright green of the tree out the front of the library and then, above it all, there is the perfect gray of a thunderstorm sky.
Enough of that, on to the news.
I started maternity leave yesterday. "Hang on," I hear you think, "you're only 23 weeks, my aunt/cousin/friend/sister worked well into the 30's of weeks." Well yeah, if I worked nearly any other job or didn't manage to freak into the rairitys of life, so would I. In fact on Monday I put in my application to start maternity leave in late December, all very well and good. Over the past week or so though, part of my left leg would go numb or feel very cold if I stood up for a while. At first it was only after about an hour, but by Monday it was down to twenty minutes and had started to ache faintly if I kept standing. This was really annoying and none of my baby books mention anything like it, so Tuesday I went to the doctor. I have an entraped lateral cutaneous femoral nerve otherwise known as Meralgia Paresthetica. It's made worse by standing for long periods of time. It seems that we've caught it early enough before the nerve gets really grumpy and painful, but since theres almost no job in a supermarket that doesn't involve standing for hours on end, I had to start my maternity leave yesterday.
It was depressingly easy, I went into work, announced that I had to start mat leave immediatly, found the right manager to give my medical certificate to and 30 seconds later, it's all done, clean out my locker and go home. As much as I was looking foward to getting out of there, it was still something of a shock to walk out with my boots and uniform and nobody cared, because they didn't know I was going for good yesterday, it all happened so fast. I realised that I might actually miss the place and the people I had gotten to know there. I didn't really get a chance to say good-bye.
On top of that, I didn't realise how much I was proud of myself everytime my wage came it. I don't earn anywhere near as much as Mr b^3 does, but it was a bit, I was making a contribution. I wasn't a total freeloader. I know that this is silly, and that I do still make a contribution to our family and running our house, and anyway, I'm the one gestating over here. But it's such a small thing to land me out of work, I'm mostly fine, the baby is fine, my blood pressure is good. If I sit down most of the time, I'd never know anything was wrong. Neither of us is in any danger, my leg is just a little numb, but if I didn't stop I'd probably be in agony in a few weeks, and I don't want that.
In knitting news, I've finally found a baby sock pattern that produces something of a size that I think I could give birth to. It's Steph's Newborn Baby Socks, and the pattern is even written for two circular needles, my prefered method of sock knitting. These socks are definitly newborn but I can make a pair in a hair over two hours so I think they're worth it. Most of the other baby sock patterns I've tried make socks that fit 6-12 month olds, which is good, but not what you're after when you want newborn socks. There will be photos, but they'll have to wait for next week. I've got a talk to give in four hours and I'd better finish it.