Patiently waiting

Either our second child will be a productive procrastinator like his or her mother or he or she will be one of those headstrong children who requires buckets of patience – and his or her lateness is part of assessing our level of patience.

Yes, we are still waiting for our baby to arrive. It's only been a week since our baby's due date came and passed, but I swear this last week has been one of the longest of my life. We didn't have anything planned for this week – the calendar is nearly blank – because we figured we'd be spending this time adjusting to and getting to know the newest member of our family.

In contrast, the three weeks prior to last week were booked nearly solid with appointments, meetings, and other must-do-before-baby tasks. The dramatic reduction in activity level made this week seem to pass all the more slowly.

To make matters worse, not a waking hour went by without a phone call from a family member or friend calling to ask if anything was happening yet. Thankfully, not a single call has come in today. I know they all meant well, but I was about two phone calls away from turning the ringer off and changing the message on the answering machine.

The good news is that each day our baby delays its arrival the odds that it will come the next day dramatically improve. To my knowledge, no woman has remained pregnant forever and the vast majority of late babies come within two weeks of their due dates, or so they tell me. So, here's to another week of patience practice.