Baby watches
No, they’re not tiny timepieces babies wear on their teeny weeny wrists.
I’m talking about the wait for a baby to be born. It’s sort of like waiting for toast to pop out of a toaster or eggs to boil, although considerably more stressful and longer. But Kate Middleton’s going into labor, and the days leading up to it with story after story, has made me remember my own experience.
No, I’m not a Duchess. Nor did I give birth to the heir to a throne. But I was 31 at the time, like Kate now, and I did feel a certain amount of pressure (and not just of the physical kind) and scrutiny as I waited anxiously to go into labor.
When you’re pregnant, people (even perfect strangers) tend to take a certain proprietary interest in you. When are you due?, they ask, as they reach forward and poke you in the belly. Friends and acquaintances run into you in the store and say, Still haven’t had that baby yet?
It’s meant well, but it wears on the already-frayed nerves of a pregnant woman in her final month. In my case, my baby-to-be was also the first grandchild for my in-laws, who were very eager for the birth to occur. My mother-in-law, who worked as a school nurse and lived on the west coast, made it clear that she was planning to come visit (in fact, she had plane tickets way ahead of time) during her Christmas break and that it would really be helpful if I could manage to have the baby then.
She wasn’t joking, either. Nor was she being bossy. She was merely matter-of-fact: she was sure I would do it. What confidence in me—a confidence I rather lacked. In fact, it made me nervous—what if I was late? My due date was in fact about four days after the date of her return flight back home, and first babies are notorious for being overdue.
I shouldn’t have doubted her, though; my mother-in-law was right on target. I went into labor about a week early, she and my own mother came up the next day, and all was well.
Good luck, Kate and William.
[UPDATE: An 8 pound 6 ounce boy! Name: to be announced.]
With the death of royalty through feminist fiat I no longer care. They ought to just quit that foolishness and just be the rich prigs they are rather than maintaining a broken failed tradition. The only time they seem to involve themselves in politics they are on the wrong side. Then again Britain probably won’t let them. They make more money from them as royalty, due to turning over the land income, along with royal and noble sessions that bring in tourists, than they would on taxing their wealth.
I was Mom’s second. Dad took his two weeks of vacation to bracket the due date. I was born, of course, the day he returned to work.
My father had one day off per week. My two siblings and I were each born on one of his days off.
It’s a boy.
My wife is a big-time Anglophile. She’s been monitoring “Kate’s” progress breathlessly for the past day and a half. She has a female friend who’s even a bigger Royals-watcher, and they seem to feed off each other. I can trace these interests back to the time of Lady Di.
I’m relieved that the blessed event has finally occurred; I can now get back to watching Duck Dynasty….
Seeing my wife gazing at nothing happening on the tee vee (while she sipped her morning coffee), . . .
I was reminded of nothing so much as airborne tee vee cameras studiously trained on a vehicle containing one O. J. Simpson going about its business one California afternoon.
[ murmurs indistinctly ]
I like Kate and William. I wish Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, et al had a bit of their class. I wish their little boy well.
A commenter at the Wall Street Journal said:
“As soon as the Royal Baby is born, Mr Obama is going to appear at a specially-called news conference in the White House Rose Garden to announce that if he had been crowned Queen of England fifty years ago, this could have been him.”
heh
Congratulations and felicitations to the young couple. I hope they name him George, after his great-grandad, who along with Churchill fought the secret war against the Nazis (see A Man Called Intrepid: George VI had, as all the English monarchs do, a discretionary fund to be used at his personal command on behalf of the nation in emergencies. He used it to support “Intrepid” and the nascent secret intelligence network, as well as resistance fighters on the Continent.)
Also, the British royal family bring in far more in tourism dollars to their country than they cost, so all this bellyaching about how expensive it all is ridiculous.
At any rate, they don’t cost us Americans a red cent, so I enjoy the spectacle.
The notion of “nobility” makes me want to puke. The fact that these people claim titles and wealth by inheritance from vile thieving warlords, people who murdered and plundered their way to the top making up BS titles as they went, does not help their case.
}}} [UPDATE: An 8 pound 6 ounce boy! Name: to be announced.]
As long as they don’t name it after the grandfather…
“Dufus” is such a bad name… even if you follow it by Roman numerals.
I rather like the idea of a royal Family for the USA. They would provide all the pomp and circumstance, the drama, fashion sense, and scandals, leaving a duly elected government to actually run the country. We now have a hybrid government, the President running around doing celebrity duty, his wife in fetching frocks, lavishly hosting foreign dignitaries, doling out the public’s taxes to his cronies, and accomplishing no good for the US.
Doesn’t need a royal family. Can automatically elevate all actors to the royal class and tax them for 99%, in return for fame and what not.