Have you had that baby yet?

Sarah Wragg - 24 Feb 16

Being overdue is a funny old business. You‘ve waited something like 36 weeks since finding out you’re pregnant so what’s another, two, right? But anyone who’s been there knows that’s not how it works.

The closest thing I can liken it to is being at the airport and watching your flight status flashing ‘DELAYED’ indefinitely. No one can be any more specific so you just float about the airport, not going far from the screens ‘just in case’ something changes, not being able to concentrate on anything significant that’ll take your mind off it, or kill some real time, and feeling furious and fed up in equal measure but having no one to actually channel that at. Except your travelling companion who can do no more about the situation than you.

And the people on the information desk – the only people who have any chance of knowing anything – are hopelessly vague. At least if they gave you an estimated ETA – even if it was ages away – you could deal with that. I think it’s called managing expectations.

However, that is where the comparison ends. Because you only have to handle your own frustration and disappointment. Not that of your family, your friends, your colleagues, your neighbour and even the staff at your first born’s nursery.  But if you pass the official 40 week mark in pregnancy, you become public property.

These are just some of the scenarios you can expect on a daily basis, from about 5 days before your actual due date:
– A plumber comes round to quote for some work and asks when you’re due. You say 11 days ago and he says: ‘Ooh blimey, you’re not going to have it while I’m here are you?!’
– You see your neighbour as you get into the car with your husband on a trip to Homebase: ‘Is this it??!!’
– You turn up on the nursery run: ‘Oh wow, still pregnant then?!’
– You phone your mum to ask something as boring as what stain devil she uses on curry and she answers after half a ring with: ‘Is this The Call?!’
– You miss a phone call from a friend and the voicemail message starts ‘OMG ARE YOU IN LABOUR???!!! I reeeealllly hope you are!!  But if not, call me back.’ (True story but in her defence she was due a day before me and we’d been engaging in a ‘still pregnant?’ text exchange every day for a week until she went and dropped.)
– And you miss two calls in one afternoon from the mother in law and when you call back she doesn’t say hello, she says: ‘Are you at the hospital?’

I’m 11 days overdue with my second, and am no stranger to The Wait. My first baby was induced twice and eventually smoked out 13 days late. That’s 13 long days after we fully expected to be seeing him. Because the first time you have every faith in that due date being The Date. You know, give or take 24 hours.

Everyone says first babies are late but you never really believe they can be THAT late. Your due date arrives and you get all giddy, your bag is packed, you have a special, romantic supper the night before, you play the ‘this time tomorrow’ game… And then you sit and wait. For days on end all you do is get increasingly obsessive about consuming  vast quantities of pineapple, curry and raspberry leaf tea. You have sex, you splurge on acupuncture and reflexology, you walk as far as you can before you think you’re going to be sick, you accept every sweep they can throw at you…. All in vain because that baby is going to come out whenever the hell it likes and no amount of old wives tales are going to actually alter the hormones that are ultimately responsible for your cervix doing anything other than exactly what it does every other day. ie: Nothing very interesting.   

But the trouble is you are so desperate to be a mum! To hold that little tiny baby and bring it home so you can just cuddle it endlessly and show it off to all your friends and experience having made a person with the man you love. You are a family for the very first time and having to wait a minute longer than you expected to experience all these wonderful things is just unimaginably tough.

Second time is slightly different, in my experience. Firstly, you are prepared for going overdue. You know if you did last time there is more than a small possibility you will again.  You take your due date with a huge pinch of salt – if you can remember it accurately at all.

Plus all the stuff that is meant to bring on labour suddenly holds much less mystical power. Show me statistics of people who have kick-started things by eating a bloody pineapple. Or curry. I mean actual ratios of everyone who has done it and everyone who has popped a baby out later that day. And then tell me how many of those were coincidences.

And then let me meet any existing parents for whom sex is a regular occurrence in the general state of play, let alone something you feel like engaging in when you are vast, haven’t seen your bikini line since your belly inexplicably shot out at 3 months pregnant, and are knackered from teatime tantrums and bedtime negotiations. So yes, sex can sod off too.

Meanwhile, having a few bonus days to yourself – stretching ahead all empty and lazy and waiting to be filled with ‘grown ups TV’, silent and solitary baths and pottering about the house – is something you would have been willing to pay handsomely for in the months and years since your last due date wait.

And on top of all this, as excited as you are to meet this little person you have made, you know there is plenty of time for the cuddles, the showing off and the meet and greets, just as there’s time for endless night feeds, bleeding nipples and hormonal rage. Basically, the shit no one talks about first time. Or rather that you block out because how bad can it be, right? I mean, they sleep through at 12 weeks, don’t they?

But lo, do not get complacent. You might be less uptight this time round but your experience last time will have left no lasting impression whatsoever on those around you. And THAT is what will cause you stress. That strange feeling that there’s a stash of (very well meaning) people waiting by the phone for news. Who are so incredibly excited that every day they are expecting the jungle drums to bring them word that you’re in labour. Who are willing your name to flash up on their phone every time it rings. Who haven’t made firm weekend plans for ages in case there’s a chance they can come and visit the new baby. And all this leaves you with a really weird feeling of responsibility. I feel guilty every day when I have to send the ‘nope, still pregnant’ text response to anyone who has raised their head above the parapet, or when I forget to text my mum before I phone to warn her I’m not in labour, just phoning for a chat.

And you know what? I’m lonely. Because no one wants to visit a pregnant person. Most people in your close circle of friends know that receiving the ‘any news?’ text is annoying and pointless, and know that of course if there was news they would have heard it. It’s 2016 after all – no one has to sit around checking the birth announcements in the paper, or wait till the baby’s father works his way through his telephone directory calling people in turn until he runs out of 10 pence pieces for the hospital pay phone. There’s email, text, Whatsapp and social media – if you really want to announce the birth on Facebook. Anyone who means anything to you will hear one way or another as soon as that baby is born and you are back in the land of the sane. Or conscious.

So instead, they avoid you. With the very best of intentions they don’t text every day, or phone for a chat, or come round for a coffee. They don’t want to look like they’re checking up on you. And anyone who doesn’t live round the corner is waiting to come and visit after you’ve had the baby – they’re not going to trek 45 minutes each way to look at a preggo when they could be doing it all over again 72 hours later and get cuddles out of the deal. So no, they stay away.

All of which means you find yourself willing labour to kick off just so you have some company. When your husband will stay off work, you will have all sorts of friendly folk asking if they can pop in, your phone will suddenly be abuzz with extended family and work pals sending you cheerful messages of congratulations, your old pals start up their standard stream of pointless chatty texting again… It’s like your social circle has collectively exhaled and can once more go back to being normal around you. At last, it’s business as usual after three or more weeks of total weirdness. 

The one thing I’ve learnt this month is that if there is a next time (ha!) I have already decided that my due date shall remain a mystery to everyone. Not just the baby.

Sarah Wragg

Mother, wife, sister, daughter, writer, cook, seamstress, housekeeper, husband-manager. Renovating a house, holding down a job, raising two phenomenal humans. Having fun.

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