High alert

I thought leaving Woman’s Day would finally mean I’d put Royal watching behind me. Those all-nighters putting out Princess Mary wedding/birth/christening special issues …

But no, I may be a million miles from print media, but I find myself on high alert for the birth of another Royal bub, this time to the British monarchy. Specifically to the Duchess of Cambridge, or as I like to call her, Princess Kate.

Princess Kate going into labour will be huge news on Facebook. And everyone has their typing fingers poised at the ready to post it, because she who gets it first wins.

Personally, I’m not all that buzzed about the new arrival yet. But I figure that will change once the Duchess goes into labour. I mean it’s pretty humungous in the gossip sphere.

We’ve been putting various plans in place at iVillage depending on whether it’s a quickie caesarean or we’re hanging around posting updates during a natural birth.

It’s quite anxious making. I keep typing in all the various permeations of Kate’s name – “Princess Kate”, “Kate Middleton”, “Duchess of Cambridge” – into Google without success.

We had a false alarm yesterday afternoon with a tweet purporting to quote a BBC report that Kate was having an emergency caesarean. Total fantasy.

I’m also asking iVillage’s Facebook followers for tips on setting off labour when you’re overdue. For me, that old wives tale of curry worked a treat. I was a week over with my first bub so we headed to our favourite Malaysian restaurant for some chicken curry and roti bread and voila, I got my first labour pain as we were walking back to the car.

Husband thought I was imagining it, but no, less than 12 hours later we were in a delivery suite and I was screaming my lungs out.

Fortunately I don’t live in Zimbabwe, where a hospital is charging women $5 every time they scream during childbirth. I’d be filing for bankruptcy.