What is in a Due Date?

Today is Tia's "official" due date and you guessed it, folks, no baby yet.  This is the day that has been calculated as the approximate length of gestation for an average women's body, typically based on an average women's cycle that assumes implantation of an embryo on a given day, upon which is centered the acceptable window of 37-42 weeks when an average baby is fully developed, but not overcooked.  The due date can be confirmed fairly reliably with an ultrasound done early in pregnancy (4-6 weeks), but doctors prefer to go with due dates calculated based on last menstrual cycle unless there is a significant difference between the two estimations.  Later ultrasounds should not be used to determine the EDD (estimated due date).  Anyone who has struggled with infertility knows that women's cycles can vary greatly and, not only does the average day of ovulation vary from women to women, but stress can put ovulation off by more than a week during any given cycle (in other words, even our last menstrual cycle can be misleading since a 28 day cycle is a guesstimate as well).  The point is, your EDD is just a guess and whenever possible, it's best not to rush your baby's birthday.  The lungs are the last thing to develop for your baby and even a day or two can make a difference for those final touches of perfection.  According to my theoretical physicist husband, "the Central Limit Theorem says that the convolution of multiple uncertainties will result in a Gaussian distribution (bell curve) of expected labor onset dates that may or may not be centered around the suspiciously round gestation time of 40.0 weeks." 

So, knowing all of that and also realizing that stress can negatively affect your ability to go into labor and for that labor to progress at a reasonable rate, circling a date on a calendar and getting excited about that date for most of a year can be both subjective and frustrating.  We spend the first 36 weeks doing everything we can to keep our babies baking so that she will be as healthy as possible and then the minute we hit 37 weeks, we can only think about ways to hurry things up.  That magical number when a baby becomes full-term changes everything.  Never mind that our due date could actually be off by a week or more or the fact that the safe window goes to 42 weeks unless your pregnancy is high risk.  We look for information to support our need to meet our baby and our need to end all of the pains and discomforts typical of late pregnancy.  We find things to worry about should our pregnancy go "post term".  We stop trusting our body...the same body that has magically created this perfect little being.  We start doubting our body's ability to get the job done in a timely fashion.  Nobody stays pregnant forever and few people actually grow babies too big to birth naturally if the baby is well-positioned.  As long as mama and baby are both healthy, it's best to let that magic continue.  While it can be a frustrating dance waiting for active labor to start, it really is incredibly cool to just follow your body's lead.  At the very least, give your body the benefit of the doubt until your doctor thinks speeding things up is medically necessary.  Try to stay positive and be glad that you and baby are healthy and have the opportunity to play things out the safest way possible.

So, what now?  The name of the game is distraction.  It's a pretty complicated game when you are surrounded by all things baby and you have a full grown one using you as a punching bag.  The thing I found that helped me the most was to create projects that I really wanted to finish before my baby arrived.  With my third, I bought a canvas and some acrylic paints and created birth art that I could focus on during contractions.  I painted a passion flower blooming and then when Kaia arrived, I had the nurse use her inked up feet to "sign" the back of the canvas.  I did a painting with Annika, too, but there are all kinds of things you can do whether you are working on the nursery, writing a story, preparing a baby book, etc.  On top of that, go pamper yourself.  Get a pedicure (foot massage is a great natural induction method!), get your hair done, indulge in your favorite treat, go on a date night with your hubby...just relax.  I know how much it sucks to hear people tell you to relax over and over, but by the end, we're just a big ball of tension and that can actually delay labor.  So, go do some meditation or yoga and let all of the stress go!

What did you do during those final very long days leading up to birth?  How did you relax and what did you do to distract yourself so you wouldn't go crazy?