Baby 1 day overdue
An email from Pete’s gran yesterday advised me that, today is the day you will learn that Bernard will do what he wants, when he wants to. Meanwhile, a friend expressed hope that I wasn’t going to become a due date freak, and my colleagues started sending frantic is he here yet? text messages.
Yes, we were counting towards June 20th, but no, we were not fixating on it. One hopes to get it over with as soon as possible, for a number of reasons: excitement and impatience to meet him after all this time; to alleviate discomfort and SLEEP (if ever) ON MY RIGHT (I can’t over-emphasise how important this has become to me); because the later he is, the bigger he gets, and the more likely we are to be bullied into induction and other unwanted interference. On the other hand, as was mentioned in commentses earlier in the week, at least now he is quiet (apart from the hiccups) and doesn’t need nappies; and I think I will miss him in bump format. I know it’s strange to sit around stroking your own belly and talking to it, but after doing this for months, it will be just as strange not to.
I woke up in the early hours of yesterday morning with a quite strong pain, and realised with some surprise that, as it was the Due Date, I might actually go into labour sometime soon. It is no longer a vague, distant abstract, but an imminent and definite event, and it’s quite hard to get used to that idea.
The French think full term pregnancy is one week longer than the UK health people.
So maybe he’s a bit French? Anyway the exact term is a moving point. Which means that everything is working normally.
This isn’t relating to the post, it’s relating to the delicious link about tipping – waitstaff in the US don’t get the standard minimum wage as they do elsewhere, they rely on tips for a living. If the service was bad because the WAITER was completely and singularly to blame, then yes, no tipping is fine. But stiffing the waiter if the service was problematic because of the kitchen is unfair.
That’s why, in those cases, you lower it to 10 or 15 %. It sends a signal to the kitchen/management via the waiter, who will be upset that he/she got stiffed because of the problem, but it doesn’t blame the waiter entirely.
Robin – I think this is related to the NHS policy on inducing birth soon after the due date, which differs from the policy in other nations – it distorts the average gestation period. See my earlier comments.
I don’t know that it’s a nationwide NHS policy, I gather intervention/induction varies from hospital to hospital. From what I remember (it was a while back, things might have changed since) my hospital wasn’t awfully keen on inducing – longer labour + more interventions means tying up more staff and beds, it’s cheaper not to bother. The policy was pretty much quick scan to check the flow to/from the placenta, kick chart and some time on the monitor everyday just to check the baby was happy where it was, then review at 10 days overdue (mine was a couple of weeks late and I remember absolutely loving lying there looking at the trace on the monitor).
Our first two were both nearly two weeks late (or one by French GPs methods). At least the weather’s cooled somewhat, eh?
Exciting times ahead…
My sister was over three weeks late back in the Dark Ages. Her daughter was well over two weeks late. There was a cold snap and neighbours kept banging on the door asking my sister to give their cars a push start!