The Royalist has been told that Kate's baby is due in early July, while other media outlets are speculating on a July 13 due date.
Tomorrow is her last day of official work – no sniggers please, it’s exhausting stuff being the face of a modern monarchy, all those church services and all that hand-shaking - meaning that if the baby was due on 4 July, she would be taking a reasonably modern three weeks off work to make final preparations for the birth of her baby.
These are being hindered significantly by the fact that Kate and William's new apartment in Kensington Palace is not ready as planned.
Kate herself said that the baby is due in 'mid-July' in her only recorded public comments, to a group of army wives, but it may well be that she is indulging in the old trick of putting out a due date later than the actual due date to keep people off her back.
It's not just princesses who do this.
There are various clues for those who care to trace them: Kate was admitted to hospital suffering from acute morning sickness on 3 December.
If the baby is due on 3 July, then that means she was eight to ten weeks pregnant at that time, which would accord with the fact that morning sickness most frequently occurs in the first trimester. The Queen didn’t know Kate was pregnant until William phoned her from the car, which again clearly suggests she was less than 12 weeks.
The palace announced the pregnancy on 14 January, meaning that with a 4 July due date she would have been 14 - 16 weeks pregnant at that time, a suitably ‘safe’ time to officially announce the pregnancy, and far enough along the journey to allow all the usual foetal abnormality scans to be completed.
Kate was well enough to fly to Mustique on February 5th, and enjoy a beach holiday babymoon, so she would have been well into the second trimester (possibly week 17-19) by then.
The baby will be born at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington where Prince William was born, and the medical team will be led by royal gynaecologists Alan Farthing and Marcus Setchell. The refurbished private Lindo wing has the latest maternal facilities including a birthing pool.
Kate’s engagement diary has been left open for the rest of the year, so we may not see much of her followign the birth, especially as she is refusing to hire a nanny.
Of course, the baby could actually arrive anytime between now and the beginning of August.
As Kate herself said: “It's around mid-July but apparently babies have their own agenda.”
They do indeed.
