A tip to all mothers when answering the question “When are you due?”:
Don’t give out your estimated due date!
Don’t worry if the baby is early as no one really complains then. The “well meaning complaints” really come when the baby is late so if you don’t give out your estimated due date but instead give a comment like “sometime in month x” then you’ll be saving yourself a lot of hassle.
One of the worst questions to hear when you’re heavily pregnant, feeling lethargic already though trying to regain some calmness in mind, and have gone over your estimated due date is
“Is the baby not here yet?”
From one perspective, I’m sure people mean well when they say the latter comment but on a different perspective it brings a lot of anxiety and pressure to the mother so it’s best for her not to hear such a question. I believe, it becomes a bigger test for the God-conscience mother to stick to her belief that “it is as God Decreed and when the baby wants to come he/she will come”.
I remember the enormous pressure I felt when Rosey didn’t come on her EDD – the pressure was unnecessary and in hindsight a lot of remarks that were made weren’t really useful. Remarks like “Why hasn’t the baby come yet?”, “When will it all be over for you?”, “If you keep the baby in there for longer you’re going to have a difficult birth”, “it’s because you’ve not walked enough that the baby is lazy inside of you” and “Gosh you’ll get bigger and it’ll be harder for you to go back to your normal body weight” weren’t exactly comments I wanted to hear… on a daily basis by the same people who are meant to “care”.
Even statements like “we want to see our new family member NOW” is an inapproapriate comment … I know family members get excited about the newcomer but spare a penny for the mother please! She’s carried the baby in her for more than 40 weeks and so allowing her to positively carry the baby till God Decrees is surely better than pressurising her to get the baby out of her?!
Oh and a good tip to all the bystanders:
If you’ve never called the mother on a daily basis to ask how she is then don’t start after the EDD either – it doesn’t show you care about her and in fact could make her feel like you’re hindering her labour process.
For mothers who are overdue and looking of ways to naturally induce then there’s plenty on other websites to help you out there. My main snippets of advice would be:
Keep faith. You can do it. When God Decrees, your baby will bring light to this world. Enjoy these days of being pregnant past your EDD because there’s no safer environment for your baby to be in and when the baby comes out there’s a whole new world to deal with.
Asma K Arif 