The Overdue Blues

Mother Load Column The Overdue Blues

You’ve spent the past nine months eagerly anticipating the birth of your baby. It’s only natural to start feeling impatient if your due date passes and there’s still no baby in sight. Here are a few strategies for staying sane as you wait for baby to make his or her grand entrance:

-Keep yourself busy. Nothing makes the time crawl by more slowly than sitting at home waiting for the first labour contraction to kick in. So rather than putting your entire life on hold until after your baby is born, try to find a fun excuse to get out of the house every day. Have lunch with a friend, treat yourself to a manicure or pedicure, or browse through baby name books at the library. Don’t let the fear of having to cancel out on someone prevent you from pencilling in some fun. Trust me, no one will hold it against you if you have to cancel out at the last minute because you’re busy having a baby! -Pamper yourself. Be sure to set aside some time to pamper yourself so that you’ll be as relaxed and rested as possible when it comes time to give birth. Enjoy a soak in the bathtub or spend an afternoon reading trashy novels. If you’re looking for some fun and inspiring ideas for pampering yourself, treat yourself to copies of The Pregnant Woman’s Comfort Book by Jennifer Louden (Harper Collins, 1995) and 50 Ways to Pamper Yourself by Stephanie Tourles (Storey Books, 1999)—two excellent guides to nurturing yourself mind, body, and soul. -Spend some time with your partner. Be sure to set aside some time to enjoy some quality time with your partner doing things that won’t be quite as easy to do after your baby arrives. Believe it or not, it may be weeks—even months!—before you are able to enjoy such simple pleasures as spontaneous sex, a quiet cuddle, or an uninterrupted meal, so be sure to seize the moment. -Let the answering machine pick up your calls. One of the most annoying things about being overdue is dodging all the phone calls from well-meaning friends and relatives who feel compelled to call you daily to find out whether or not you’ve had that baby yet. If you weren’t already depressed about being overdue, you’re bound to be after spending an entire day on the phone telling people that there’s still no baby! If you want to save yourself the bother of calling all these people back, leave a message on your machine indicating that you’re resting up for the birth and that you’ll call everyone back as soon as you’ve got some exciting news to share. Or, better yet, compile a list of e-mail addresses so that you or your partner can fire off a quick e-mail to share the news of your baby’s birth with the world. (Obviously, you’ll want to phone rather than e-mail your closest friends and relations. E-mail is best saved for notifying your hairdresser, your dentist, and the 101 other people who are eager to hear your big news.) -Don’t expect to be able to rush Mother Nature. While there are countless folk remedies that promise to bring on labor sooner rather than later, most of them (like driving down a bumpy road!) are based more on anecdotal evidence than hard medical fact. If you decide to experiment with herbal remedies that can stimulate uterine contractions, make sure you have the solid support of your doctor or midwife and that you’re obtaining reliable information about the use of these products. They may be “natural,” but, natural or not, they can still pack a rather powerful pharmacological punch. -Remind yourself that there’s nothing unusual about going a few days overdue. In fact, it’s the norm. According to British childbirth expert Sheila Kitzinger, only 5% of babies arrive on their due dates; and of the 95% who don’t arrive on time, seven out of ten are overdue. -Take solace in the fact that you’re not a mother elephant. Elephant pregnancies last between 18 and 22 months, the longest gestation period of any mammal. Fortunately, human pregnancies aren’t nearly that long—although, at this stage of the game, you may feel like you’re going to be pregnant forever. As hard as it may be for you to believe, it’s only a matter of time before labour will begin and you’ll finally have the chance to meet your baby.