Alamy
So you have two weeks to go before B-day. You should be resting up, making the most of being able to sit around eating chocolates, watching daytime TV. At best you should be packing bags and "nesting", right?
WRONG! Now's the time to cram in as much as possible While You Still Can.
"Nip" to the supermarket in the car several times a day.
Forget petrol saving or "enjoying the walk" to the grocers. I shall spend the next couple of weeks hopping in the car for all sorts of things. Apparently I will never be able to "nip" anywhere again. Getting in and out the car will be a lengthy and traumatic process and will no longer involve tossing my purse into the footwell and speeding off to the strains of Blinded By The Light.
Go to the cinema in the middle of the night.
There's nothing quite like sitting in complete silence, lap full of Ben and Jerry's, imbibing a slash-horror fest or a painstakingly morose French movie. Enjoy it. Hereon in it'll be all low-lit, low-sound mums-and-tots showings of Wall-E.
Have three baths a day
My friends tell me I will never enjoy a bath again. Being more of a 10-minutes-in-the-shower kind of girl, in the next couple of weeks I intend to lock myself in the bathroom with War And Peace (OK, my Goldie Hawn autobiography) and make the most of the bubbles and solitude. While I Still Can.
Spend all afternoon in Urban Outfitters
Granted, if you're in the last stages of pregnancy nothing will fit you but try everything on anyway (men's clothes, if need be). You will never be able to do this again.
Have a flirty lunch
So you might be the size of a whale with eight chins but you might never get the chance again to bat sparks across the table with that old flame. In your last week of non-motherhood, don your best frock (OK, the one that fits), plaster your face in makeup and spend an hour or so revisiting old times without a one-year-old flicking scrambled egg in your face every time you try and look simultaneously attached/up for it/vulnerable/in control.
Have lots of sex
So you might not quite feel like it in the last few days of gestation. But I am reliably informed that the notion of a quickie will go out the window as soon as your bundle of joy cottons on to you having any sort of fun while they could be awake joining in. So grab your partner while you can...
Spend two hours washing/conditioning/straightening your hair
Just two months after you give birth you will be wondering how on earth you managed to waste so much time on your barnet. If it's lucky your hair will get little more than a scowl and a hat from now on. Treat it nicely now so it doesn't forget you.
....likewise makeup
If you feel like taking an hour to pluck your eyebrows, do it. According to received wisdom, in six months' to a year's time my tweezers will be nowhere to be found, my mirrors will be smeared in baby pawprints and lipstick will be just something else to draw with. I'm flaming well making the most of my arched brows now before they come over all Gallagher.
Run up to the top deck of the bus, push your nose up to the window and watch the world go by
OK, so it might not be the most glamorous way to spend your last few days of freedom but, according to my friend Jane, You Will Never Be Able To Do It Ever Again without considerable hassle.
Stay up REALLY REALLY late...and lie in the next morning
This one is obvious really. Just do it.
Do you have any advice you wish you'd paid heed to before your baby was born?
Did you cram lots of activities in, or just spend the last couple of weeks napping and nesting?