Deadlines

I just returned from the obstetrician who, upon walking into the exam room cheerfully announced, “Any time between now and November 17th!”

November 17th? Is she out of her fucking mind? I will have to be hospitalized for hysteria loooong before November 17th. Fifteen days from now? And where did she even come up with that number? Take your due date, add the age of your husband’s half brother, subtract the age of a child of a friend born in November and voila!?

Pregnant women absolutely, positively should not be given due dates. I’ll take a window—even a large, gaping, leaky, poorly insulated five-week-long window—any day over a date that everyone and their mother will inquire about even though I’ll have only a 5% chance of delivering on that date. Throughout my entire 20-year career as a student, I only asked for an extension on an assignment once. To me, a due date is a due date. If I haven’t had this baby by November 7th, it will feel late to me, even if statistics indicate I’m more likely to deliver after the 7th than before.

In fact, I’m so prepared for this particular assignment that I would like to turn it in early. I would like to stop fretting about the margins and spacing and alignment and the title and the contents and just be done already.

November 17th, my (slowly but surely widening) ass.