It’s time to pick my baby’s birth date

This week: Agonising over picking a name – and a birth date

‘Nothing this baby has done so far has been plain sailing, so this is bang on form for her’

‘Are you ready to pick your baby’s birthday?”

It’s yet another of the many weird questions I have been asked during this eventful pregnancy, and yet another that I’ve never had to answer before. And, yet again, it’s because of my age.

It would seem that these days, if you’re over the age of 40, you might be advised to have the baby a little earlier than the full term of 40 weeks. At around 38 weeks, in fact.

The reason for this baby-gun-jumping is because when a woman is over “a certain age”, there appears to be a rise in the numbers of stillbirths after week 38, in babies that had seemed perfectly healthy.

It can be safer to take the baby out, I am advised, rather than let it cook for another couple of weeks. But it is not compulsory, and amazingly enough there is something called Mother’s Choice.

This is a new one for me; my previous three showed spectacular laziness, all arriving well after their due dates. Taking a baby out before time has never been something that I’ve wanted, and it feels especially important to keep this little lady in as long as possible, having been in pre-term labour for the last eight weeks with exhausting, painful contractions continuing day and night.

Her bumpy ride thus far, and her existence at all at a stage in life when I didn’t think I could even have another baby, has made her incredibly precious, and I want her to be as strong as possible before she comes to greet us.

So off to Google I go to do some research. And pretty quickly, I decide that the most sensible thing to do is to take the advice I’ve been given. If there’s any increased risk to her health in the home straight – and, given my age, there could be – then I don’t want to run it.

The good news is that we will meet her two weeks sooner. The bad is that she will have to be induced.

I’ve heard a lot about induced labour, and none has been anything other than blood-curdlingly awful. So, as you can imagine, I’m looking forward to it immensely.

To try to distract myself from the looming awfulness, I try focusing on two slightly less terrifying things: picking a birthday, and a name.

The date part is, oddly, the harder of the two. A name can be changed, but the date we are brought into the world, our first breath, is with us for life. For every birthday party.

The latter seems very important, so I write down a few potential dates, and study them carefully like paint samples on a wall.

Is 23 nicer than 24? What about the 25th? Like Christmas. No, I loathe Christmas. The 22nd? Alliterative birthday. Nice. Ah, but no, then I would need to buy two packets of number candles for the cake because they never have duplicates. I’m too mean for that. But does it look pretty on forms? Does it have style?

We plump for the 24th. Even, mathematically and aesthetically pleasing.

We are then told that the only available date is the 23rd. Honestly, I’m relieved. Nothing this baby has done so far has been plain sailing, so this is bang on form for her.

Now all we need is a name – adventurous, strong-willed, unusual, independent, challenging, wonderful, razor-sharp.

Then it comes to me in a moment, one evening.

So there we are. Ready. The hospital bag is still packed. Our baby has a birth date, and a name.

We have only a few weeks left before we become parents together, I go back to having a newborn and all that comes with it, for the first time in 15 years.

I can hardly wait.

Next time: Will the family finally flip out?