When's that baby due? BABY!!!

Bryan Reagan does this little skit that goes something along the lines of this:

"I'm always putting my foot in my mouth. I don't stop to think. It's just like, 'Oh no, words are coming out!'

"...Like I met this woman the other day and I could have sworn she was pregnant. Let me tell you...

--ooohhs from the audience--

"I know now! I think the rule is don't guess at that ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, evereverevereverever... something like that. I don't have enough 'evers' memorized.

"So I said, 'Hey, when's that baaaby due?'

"You ever feel a word coming out but it's too late to stop it? It's coming out loud: 'Hey when's that BABY due... BAAABBBY!!!'"

"What baby?"

--gasps--

"At the zoo! The pandas! I heard they were trying to have one... I just, um, you know, thought we'd talk about it. Thought we'd talk about the fluffy zoo animals. You can go see them....touch them...if you want..."

Since this is the most common question I hear nowadays, I'm just glad that I'm actually pregnant.

We have 9 days left...until our due date. We're finally in the single digits, which is exciting and a little bit scary.

I've been hearing a lot of different feelings from a lot of different women about due dates and counting down. Most of the advice is: don't.

However, this is virtually impossible to do since everyone asks, "Hey, when are you due?"

So, we're due the 22nd of July, which is now just around the corner.

We're pretty much expecting her to come any day now, which gives her room to come whenever she wants.

I'd, of course, prefer sooner--mostly because I feel like I've recently entered one of those contests where you have to hold a balloon between your knees and walk around without dropping the balloon. Later is okay, too, although I do want to meet her, and I know Andrew does, too.

(By the way, Baby, today would be a cool birthday--it's Friday the thirteenth-- so, just in case you were waiting for a cool day to be born on, today would be it).

We were talking about such things at the baby shower my Home/Visiting Teacher threw for me on Tuesday. I mentioned that I would be totally fine with things if the baby happened to be born a week early.

Pam cautioned me, "Oh, don't think about that because the 15th will come and go and you will just get depressed. Trust me, I mean, my baby was born 2 days early, so I was like, 'Cool.' But I had this one friend who decided she wanted her baby a month and a half early and it was a week and a half late--she was really depressed for a long time."

That's good advice except that Pam probably would have been upset had she passed her due date as well, because everyone counts down. Everyone. It's impossible not to. She just doesn't know she would be upset because it didn't happen to her.

Of course, I'm not sure that I really feel quite as pregnant as some other women do this far along. Oh, I feel pregnant enough. I feel huge! I can't move or bend or sit or stand or lie down normally. I feel like I've been pregnant long enough.

However, when people find out that I'm pretty much due, they ask, "What are you having, a puppy?"

(Just for the record, two people asked me that last week).

Another common conversation I have is,

"When's your baby due?"

I answer simply, "The 22nd," since this is July, and I think it's obvious my baby is due soon.

"Of what month?" comes the reply.

"July," I say.

"Really?" they gasp and then add the part about having a puppy or kitten or tumor or perhaps that I'm really due next July. Or, if they are really polite they just say, "Well, you're rather small..."

Perhaps I'm not as uncomfortable as some women are this far along, but I do have my discomforts, and I am pretty big, I think. But then, I'm the one carrying it around all day, everyday.

Truthfully, I think we'd be fine if we had the baby early. After all, I'd be finished being pregnant...but at the same time, I'm not sure that we're really ready yet...and to be a full week early would mean she'd be born in 2 days. That would be just crazy.

If we had her exactly on time, I think we'd be fine because we've had that date in our head for a long time now. That's the day we're ready and waiting for.

And if she comes late, I'm sure I'll be a little frustrated about going "over" due--wondering if she's ever going to come out--but I think that we'd be just fine. No one really wants to go overdue, but (and no offense, Baby) we're kind of scared to enter parenthood, so putting it off for a week or so might not be so bad.

But, as our friend Matt reminded us, "You're next!"

Everyone in the ward who was due before me had their babies--it's my turn. Unless, of course, this baby is so late that she overshoots my friend Heather's due date, in which case Heather will be the next to go...and that just wouldn't be fair at all!