5 Reasons Why I Won’t Share My Due Date

Fact #1: Less than 5% of babies are born on their due dates.

The “due date”. Oh, the pressure! The very first question people ask you when they hear you’re pregnant, lots of times even before they officially congratulate you, is the inevitable, “When are you due?”. My answer is always the month I am due (this time “April!”) in which I get the response, “April what?”. Well, my issue with my “due date” is that it’s not when my baby is due. It’s an estimated “guess date”, which is what we call it in the natural birth world of low interventions, homebirths and hypnobirths. Oh, and if you weren’t sure what the second question always is, here is a meme to show you. Although, not as annoying as long as your response isn’t “Oh, good luck, they are trouble” or “How can you make me wait so long?”…

Fact #2: 80% of women will have their babies between their 37th and 42nd week of pregnancy.

According to the statistics, 95% of women have their babies on any other day besides their “due” day; and according to the statistics of fact #2, 80% of women have their babies within the same 5 weeks of gestation. FIVE WEEKS. That’s a large window. That’s three full weeks before the “due date” and two full weeks after it. That could mean even my guess month is off, especially if you’re “due” within the first or last week of the month. Now that I think about it, maybe I’ll just answer with a season from now on. 😉

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Fact #3: On average, most studies show that first time moms deliver late, or past their “due dates”.

I am a second time mom this time around, and luckily I did not deliver “late” my first time. I also did not deliver “early”. Nope, my little girl came right on her “due date”, because, that’s when babies come right? Kidding, of course. Maybe she will grow up as a perfectionist or someone who is always on time, but if she is anything like me…well, she just got lucky. 🙂

Fact #4: Your cell phone and social media accounts will blow up with family and friends inquiring when baby is coming around your due date

Every few hours, someone will ask if you had the baby yet. Or where the baby is. “When the baby is coming,’ they inquire. Perhaps even worse- they yell at you!! They actually have the nerve to say THEY can’t wait any longer. This will continue until they receive the news the baby was born. It will even continue once they know you’re in labor. It will not stop until they see proof of baby.

Ok, this may not be a proven fact

 But any pregnant mother past her date can tell you- this is 100% true. Also, if don’t see the verity in my point, you can probably admit you’ve bugged an “overdue” mama about when baby is coming. Well, you’re the reason I’m not telling my due date.  If I were to go past my guess date, I wouldn’t think twice about it. Although, I’ll admit, around 41 weeks and 6 days I might start to question where my baby is myself.

But that’s for me to worry about! You may think because my baby was born on my due date I have no business complaining about this…yet. However, people began to ask me this my first pregnancy about 2 weeks before I was even “due”!  I also witnessed numerous pregnant mothers receiving due date inquisitions as well.

So really, there is no way around having NO ONE ask you if your baby is here yet, but there is a way to minimize it . Broaden your due date to a due month. Be prepared for further inquiries after you give the month (mine, April). To hear “April what?”

At this point I always say “mid April”. Most people “get it” by then, but some continue to ask, for the third time, “But what day?”. Why these people will care so much you will never know. I mean, my family and my closest friends know my guess date, but they also know how I feel about it and that to me, it doesn’t mean much. (And if they didn’t, they do now!)

Fun fact #5: My daughter is one of the 5% of babies who was born on their due date.

She is also one of the 1% of babies born at home. I don’t know the statistic for homebirth babies born on their due dates, but I am pretty sure she is something special. 🙂

So, I will be having my 2nd baby this is April. Possibly March, possibly May.

Basically, Spring 2017. My baby will come when my baby is ready, and if you just can’t wait any longer to find out he/she is here, just remember… I have spent this pregnancy puking, crying, farting, gaining weight, dealing with insomnia, having migraines and back aches and sciatica pain that would make Superman cry , getting kicked in the ribs, peeing every 15 minutes, waddling instead of walking and staying sober for 40 weeks…so please, SHUT. UP. AND. WAIT.

I will leave you with one of the hypnobabies affirmations from my tracks, forever embedded into my brain…

“Babies are born on their birthdays, not when doctors say.”

Teresa Finocchio

I am a 27 year old first time mom who lives in New Jersey. I had an all natural planned homebirth with the help of water and the self-hypnosis hypnobabies method. I am currently a stay at home breastfeeding mother to my beautiful baby girl and I’ll be sharing with you all some personal experiences and covering some other interesting topics, stay tuned.