Countdown

I walked into a Mexican restaurant to pick up lunch and the woman behind the counter said, "Wow, still working, huh?"

I guess the entire city is waiting for the Big Day.

Which is imminent, or so I hear. The 38th week is considered term, 40 is ideal, and no one starts worrying about inducing or cesareans until week 42. It turns out that, as with almost everything else about pregnancy, calculating the "due date" isn't as scientific as you might think. It's a guess based on fairly arbitrary questions and our current 365 day in a year convention, with some ultrasounds and some tape measures liberally thrown in.

I am "due" on April 10th. I plan to work through the 13th, a fact which inevitably creates bemusement on faces. "But," they splutter, "April 13th is after April 10th!" (Maybe they feel that since all my brain cells are impaired I am unable to do simple arithmetic.) I nod at this sage observation, and quietly explain that, since I can't possibly predict the actual date, I picked an end date that was reasonable for the majority of the statistics; most first babies are late, not early, and in my family in particular there's a history of lateness. If I go early, chaos will ensue anyway. If, on the other hand, I am late, I will go stir crazy if I have nothing to do but sit at home. This seems entirely reasonable to me, but then, these are people who offer me chairs and demand I sit down (I've been sitting down all day!) or apologize when they've made me "walk all the way over here."

I've been berated for not packing my hospital bag, as well. Every expectant mother knows that you have to pack your hospital bag way in advance because, well, you just never know when you'll have to go there. Every expectant mother also knows not to rush off to the hospital at the very first sign of labor, so the question is: why can't you use all that waiting time to pack the bag for the hospital? And furthermore, this isn't a vacation.... how much stuff could I possibly need to bring with me? Yet, there are countless lists out there for the packing impaired to choose from.

So, we're waiting, we're enduring, and yes, we're still breathing, walking, talking and working. Stanley Hilarius is inevitably dropping and things are slowly coming to their hopefully happy conclusion. We'll let you know how it goes.