The Waiting Game... with deadlines.

For all of modern medicine's advances, it still can't seem to accurately predict either a baby's size or his/her date of arrival (unless you're forcing the baby out)... which really isn't helping me much these days.

I've been full term for nearly 2 weeks, and tomorrow we'll be down to the final week before my estimated due date. At the moment my head is spinning with little tidbits from friends, birth boards or my midwives, like, "second babies often come early!" "Wow, this little guy has dropped 6-7 cm since last visit! He's either coming early or very quickly when he comes!" "With all the stress you've been under at work I wouldn't be surprised if he came any moment." "Oh, you seem so relaxed now, I think he'll hang in there a while longer." "You're a natural planner, I think baby will feel that and come right after your parents get here."

Usually B & I are advocates of just letting baby be, trusting that babies and pregnant bodies know best when baby is ready for the outside world. Unfortunately, we're fairly sure Canadian Immigration is not going to accept this as a suitable excuse for why our baby wasn't able to get a passport in time to fly to Canada four weeks today.

The problem isn't actually his passport, which we've worked out can be gotten in a day if need be. The problem is the birth certificate necessary to get the passport; which we don't seem to be able to request early and we were told in no uncertain terms takes 3-4 weeks (and that's WITH string pulling!)!

"Well, why not simply delay your flight?" the wise ones ask... Unfortunately, after $225-$300 in change fees alone, we still have to factor in the increased cost of 3 full fares that are going up daily as the holiday approaches, all from a bank account that could only afford flights on points in the first place. (If you're a wise one with money to give us, please call!)

So tomorrow I'm heading back to my midwife's office for her assessment and recommendations on how to get this N-arrival process going! I'd love to wait until our families are here next week (for many reasons, not least of which is the desire to not need to call any of our friends to request a middle of the night playdate for T!), but with our "latest possible" date looking to be this coming Wednesday, it doesn't leave N much wiggle room...(sorry for the pun, it's late).

Here's hoping my next post is a birth announcement!