Just because it's due, doesn't mean it's here

Due Date: "In pregnancy, the due date is the date near which a pregnant woman is expected to give birth."

What can I say.

The "expected" still has not come. We're still waiting. In fact, we're hardly even waiting any more ... if anything, labour seems further away from us now more than ever.

The day was relatively uneventful. Mela refused to nap (showing disturbing tendency to one nap a day lately), went for lunch with work friends, and bought some great used kids clothing.

In a rare move of brilliance, I followed some great advice I read online a couple weeks ago and booked a friend to babysit tonight. The thinking was that if you have the baby before that, you just cancel but if you don't, going for a nice dinner is a good distraction on a day where you feel like something special should happen, even if it's not a baby.

At the time, I thought the chance of actually making it to this day was a long shot. As it turns out, here we are and am I ever glad we made these plans.

Last year (was it really only last year?!) we went out for really nice dinner on our due date, so this time around we planned to go to the same spot but it was closed.

Turns out that was a blessing in disguise - we tried another place further down the street (Joy Bistro) and it was fabulous.

I deliberately had things I normally wouldn't try:

• duck confit salad (what is "confit" anyway?? still don't know but very tasty),
  
• beef cheeks, wild mushrooms and cream pasta (I asked, and yes it actually is a chunk of a cow's cheek but once I got past that, it was the most amazingly tender, succulent piece of meat I've ever tasted),
  
• even some of a glass of wine (divine sensory experience after such a long period of abstinence)!

It was a wonderful dinner, maybe the best I've had in the past year. Having such a lovely night was almost worth not having the baby yet.

ALMOST.

Stay tuned for the results of the membrane sweep tomorrow!

Last year's Due Date Dinner:

Due Date Dinner, circa 2008: