Story of a Pregnant Woman: The Due Date Has Passed, and I’m Still Pregnant

An honest story and concern of a pregnant woman who has gone past her due date.

So, the due date came and went, and I’m still pregnant. Perhaps the strongest feeling in this whole storm (because lately I’m just a huge ball of emotions) is uncertainty. How long will this last now?! Seven, ten days? Two? The due date is like a finish line from the very beginning of pregnancy. That’s where you have to get to, and far away everything ends – reports the portal Biti roditelj.

When you first find out you’re pregnant, that goal is so far away, often in the next calendar year. The seasons have to change, so many significant milestones have to pass that seem far at the start. So when that little dot appears on the first ultrasound, the end seems… far away, maybe even uncertain – who knows what might happen along the way. You breathe a little easier when the first three months, which they always say are the riskiest, are over. You breathe even easier when you start to feel your baby kicking and know they’re doing well. As the months pass, you gain some confidence that you’re both okay, little by little progressing and growing.

Slowly Towards the Goal

Days, months, and checkups go by, and everything is moving toward that due date. That date that at the beginning seemed unimaginably far away. You prepare things, prepare yourself, let go of fear (more or less, realistically, fear is always there somewhere) and then, two weeks before, when there’s no more risk, you think, well, it would be fine if it ended now. And every day you think that, everyone tells you – it could be any day now. But you still treat the due date with some respect, at least I do – you always know exactly how many days are left between you and it.

That’s why when I went into labor with my first child two days before the due date, I was so excited. Look, he came a tiny bit early. And I always remember he was born the day before the due date, that he was supposed to be born on March 5, not a day earlier. Subconsciously, in this pregnancy too, I expected something like that – either a day earlier or a day later, but definitely very close to the due date.

... Or Maybe Not

But this time, the due date came, I went to the checkup, and just as big and clumsy I went home, without any sign that anything might happen soon. I’ve even been to another checkup since then, and still no signs that anything is about to happen. The CTG is fine, there’s enough amniotic fluid, he’s clearly perfectly happy inside – but when will he come out? And now suddenly I’m worried about how late he’ll be exactly. If he’s two days late, could it be ten?! Will this labor even start on its own, or will I have to be induced? No one has the answer.

The doctors, of course, have no reason to hurry things since everything is fine, everyone tells me to relax, but the tension is in the air around me. I feel it with my husband, my parents, and friends who constantly call and text. Everyone wants to know if anything is happening. And the truth is – nothing is happening at all. Except that the due date we were all so focused on has come and gone, everything else is just as it was a week or two ago. There’s no news. Nothing is happening, as if time has stopped. And no one, least of all me, knows how long it will stay this way. Maybe I’ll give birth tonight. Maybe not for another four days.

The funniest part? My birthday is in a few days. And I was late for my own due date too. Looks like it’s true that everything comes back around... But until when? That’s all I want to know now. Until when, and will it finally happen?!