heh, heh, heh. I was just going through some old folders on my hard drive and found a column I wrote a little over two years ago now, when I was waiting for Owen to be born. I’m going to re-post part of it here, going out to my sister-in-law Jenna, who’s expecting her second baby any day now:

In this day and age, inductions (starting labor medically with synthetic hormones or other drugs) are so common that I get a funny look any time I tell somebody my due date was technically last week. But as long as it’s not medically necessary—and I trust my very competent care providers to help me figure that out—I plan to let the baby come when he and my body are ready.

But let’s be honest here: am I tired of being pregnant? Do bears use Charmin in the woods? It’s frustrating, not to mention boring, to wait for something I thought was going to happen last week. So to help me (and anyone else who may find herself waiting for a baby that was “supposed” to make his appearance already) pass the time, I’ve created this list of things any “past-due” pregnant woman can do to keep herself occupied:

• Using your caller ID, start screening phone calls, answering only those of utmost importance. Make predictions about whether the callers you ignore will a) not leave a voice mail at all, instead calling back again and again hoping to force you into answering the phone through sheer persistence; b) leave a slightly annoying, yet reasonable message like “Hey, just checking to see if you’ve had that baby yet!” or c) leave an even more annoying message like “Geez, I can’t believe you haven’t had the baby. When’s it going to come out?” Give yourself 2 points for every correct prediction, and 1 point for incorrect predictions just to be nice to yourself.
• Create a flow chart to handle all the requests you’ve received from other people about when would be a good time for you to give birth. So far, I’ve been told that it would be good if I went into labor after 8 AM, but before 1 PM, so that I can be assured of a baby before midnight; unless it’s Thursday or Saturday, when it would be best for me not to go into labor at all. Right now, I’ve got “labor” slotted for between 8AM and 1PM this Friday. Anyone else with requests? I’ve got my planner out and my highlighter in hand.
• Come up with creative responses to all the medical advice you’re receiving from friends, family and strangers in the grocery store. Instead of saying something boring and clichéd like “Oh, babies come when they’re ready,” why not say “You know, I was thinking that this whole “parenting a newborn” thing sounds kind of hard, so I’m just going to make the baby stay in there until she’s able to feed herself table food!”
• Take a nap. You have to stock up on sleep now for those long nights ahead.
• Take another nap. That first one wasn’t nearly long enough.
• Surf the web. Stay away from sites containing stories about women who give birth to 15- or 16-pound babies. Also, keep this in mind: Google-ing certain words like “pregnant” or “breastfeed” will bring up an assortment of fetishist sites that you may want to avoid (dead giveaway: anything that pictures a hugely pregnant woman looking sultry. When was the last time you looked sultry?)
• Create a postpartum diet and exercise plan that’ll have you fitting back into your pre-pregnancy jeans in no time. (Note: I’ve created such a plan with all of my previous pregnancies, and to date, have never once followed it. But it provided me with plenty of delusional inspiration at the time.)

If you get truly desperate, you can try those things everybody swears start labor—but they can never prove—like eating spicy Mexican food, jumping on a trampoline or scrubbing the floors. For now, I’m just going to avoid the phone and remind myself that babies DO come out, and generally before they can crawl.

Next week, I’ll be back with a baby update. At least, I better be.

I mean it this time.

There you go, Jenna, and any other almost-gonna-have-that-baby pregnant women reading. (and Jenna? I am trying REALLY hard not to be that annoying person who calls all the time! REALLY REALLY hard! Like sitting on my hands over here!)