Confession: I hate due dates.

If you were told you were simply going to be pregnant for approximately 10 months (yes, ten) instead of given a date what would you do? I tend to think that women would be more patient and wait it out. Having a due date just makes women anxious. Rarely do women listen to their bodies and let the baby decide when it's time. Instead there's this magic number hanging over them like some time bomb waiting to go off.

I have told all my loved ones that our baby is due in mid-March, and yet for some reason people refuse to take this as a final answer. They simply have to have a date to go by. I wound up arguing with my lovely boyfriend because he couldn't listen to the bickering anymore and blurted out a due date (the wrong one actually, not that it matters). He just doesn't understand that some people only want a specific day so they can bother you as the time gets closer. If the baby is born before this date, he's automatically labeled as "early." If we go past the day on my chart, he's late and the pressure is on. Not to mention the phones calls and texts we'll receive leading up to asking about my progress and if there's any sign of labor.

It's just so unnecessary. As if my cervix is any of your business...

If I lied and told them our baby was due on March 31st I'd have an extra month of peace to look forward to. Due dates are estimations of when a 40-week baby would be done cooking. They aren't an exact science and a normal, healthy pregnancy can be 42 weeks long if you let it. Even so, my dates are all screwed up anyway and as far as I'm concerned the entire span of time from the last weeks in February and all of March is fair game. I'm content with waiting it out and letting the baby decide his birthday. Why stress out over dates?