Now that I'm 31 weeks pregnant, I've gone rapidly downhill in terms of energy levels and am getting very worn out and physically unwell. Despite not wanting to slow down it's become inevitable, and the problem is that I find myself continually feeling the need to justify myself. My boss has told me to cut my hours back (same pay, she just doesn't want me to wear myself out doing long office hours) but I feel incredibly guilty leaving in the mid-afternoon when my team are still hard at work. Note that I'm a manager so my role doesn't correlate to anybody else's role, e.g. it's not as if I'm not "pulling my weight" and creating more work for everybody by doing less, it's just that I can do less to support and assist my staff than I could before, and they don't get as much face time. I just feel like a slacker!
I tend to be very clear to my colleagues and staff when I'm having a particularly bad day e.g. I'll mention that I got no sleep or that I'm suffering from severe backache. And when I do leave I might say something like: "I'm absolutely exhausted, I got no sleep last night! Heading home now but I'll be checking my emails if you need me". Is that dismissive of the fact that others may also have reasons why they're tired? I mean, let's face it, most people would love to leave work early! As somebody who has spent my entire career being first in every morning and one of the last to leave, it's weird for me being the
last to arrive and
first to leave, which is why I seem to have this need to explain myself every.single.time. But I'm worried that I'm whinging constantly by explaining what I'm doing and how I'm feeling. Should I just say "these are the hours I'm working" and stick to it?
I have the same problem at home, I'm constantly justifying to DH why I need to rest and therefore can't always do my share of dishes / prepare dinner / clean up etc (again, not needed, he's not pressuring me in anyway and in fact is encouraging me to rest more!!).
Should I just shut up, slow down, and assume everybody understands the reasons why? I get anxious about letting people down, so want to explain why this sudden limitation has hit me! But I don't want to irritate people by bringing it up too much. (Ironically I have the opposite problem with friends, families and acquaintances outside of work & home - I don't feel the need to justify anything to them seeing I'm not "letting them down", and in fact it drives me nuts all of the intrusive questioning and pressure I get from people telling me I should have quit work by now! I would rather talk about non-pregnancy related topics but apparently pregnancy is everybody's business!)
Any advice or suggestions to avoid being an annoying SS for the next 8 weeks? (Hopefully not too much longer than that!

).