I have discovered that the best thing to do is never to get off the Seinfeld Chain for any reason. I was on one for almost 3 months in the spring, and after about a month it became as easy and natural to write every day as it is to brush my teeth. Then I went off it to go on vacation, and now it’s a struggle to start a new chain.
I’m now thinking that my plan to stop working on August 1 and not do any work at all until the end of my maternity leave is an idiotic idea. My sister said that when she tried to stop working a month before her due date, she started feeling every single symptom of being in her third trimester very vividly. She says that when you have nothing to distract you from the symptoms, your whole life becomes about the symptoms. So she worked almost straight until the due date, and in an office, too.
I’m extremely lucky in that I don’t have to heave my huge belly to an office in order to work. I can work while lying in bed, and I never need anything like 8 hours a day to be productive. Just the opposite, if I tried to write for 8 hours, I’d be incapable of doing any more research for at least a week.
Don’t mind me, I’m just thinking aloud to figure this stuff out.
Clarissa's Blog 
I worked right up until the day before both births of my children (I worked in an office setting then, with 8 hour days). Mostly it was so I would have more time off after my baby was born (I only got 6 weeks off back then), but then, I also felt good and had enough energy to manage it.
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You should just resolve to do whatever you feel like. I worked on my research and class prep till I went into labor. These are parts of my job I really enjoy, so it wasn’t as though I was forcing myself to do something awful by “working”.
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This sounds very reasonable. Thank you!
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