Is there a reason why people love telling me that I might go into labor before my due date? The possibility that I will go over the due date is just as – or more, since it’s the first baby – great, yet nobody ever mentions it. Literally, every single person I talk to points out that labor might start early. People’s eyes seem to glaze over in enjoyment as they share this insight. Some have already mentioned this a bunch of times.
And they find really strange ways of wording it, too. “Just so you know,” people say conspiratorially, “it might start before your due date.” And they giggle. Because it’s totally likely that at my age I somehow managed not to acquire this bit of trivia.
Clarissa's Blog 
Do they know you’re planning a C-section? If it starts before, I am unsure whether C-section always can be done on time.
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If you’re stuck on a mountaintop somewhere, they won’t manage to do a C-section on time. Otherwise, C-sections done after labour starts shouldn’t be a problem.
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Especially since we are not talking about child #8. First children rarely just shoot out of there within minutes. 🙂
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Haha, mine did (shoot out in minutes, that is), and he is my first too. But I agree it is rare: all the nurses were talking about the great speed of my delivery!
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“People’s eyes seem to glaze over in enjoyment as they share this insight.”
The drama entertains them? Watching chaos in other people’s lives? It happens in movies enough times – a woman suddenly going into labor in an awkward time or location, and her partner running around like a headless chicken trying to help.
Is it the same impulse that drives people to gleefully tell you how you won’t be getting any sleep after the birth, or how your child will be a nightmare at the age of two or when he’s a teenager? (“Just you wait…”) They want people to share in their own anxiety or misery? 🙂 The glee of seeing someone’s life upended.
I just want to share this real life example of someone coolly handling a labor that came earlier than expected. I don’t remember when this was exactly, but I remember reading an article about a woman who went into labor in the middle of her bar exam. She calmly finished the exam (I think it was her first child too, and she felt the labor was progressing slowly anyway, with contractions not spaced close together, so why not get the bar over with?) Then she went to her hospital, which was nearby, and got the C-section she’d planned for 🙂
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“Is it the same impulse that drives people to gleefully tell you how you won’t be getting any sleep after the birth, or how your child will be a nightmare at the age of two or when he’s a teenager? (“Just you wait…”) They want people to share in their own anxiety or misery? ”
– There are many people who really really want everybody to be miserable as parents. I think it tells us a lot about their own experiences.
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They might be inconvenienced if the baby is early and you haven’t made plans to avoid that inconvenience to them. Because it would be rude to talk about the possible inconvenience aloud, they make the veiled hint to find out if there’s a plan.
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