Royal Watch: Down to the Day

Let’s face it: Once the question of who designed Kate Middleton’s wedding dress was answered (Kate Burton for Alexander McQueen, for those of you that have been living under a rock, and what a beautiful job she did, too), the next question on everyone’s lips was this: When is the pregnancy going to be announced? It had to be soon, didn’t it? After all, think about Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Prince William was born less than a year after their marriage - clearly their gene pool has some strong swimmers in the mix. In fact, for the past three hundred years, an heir to the British throne has never taken longer than a year following the wedding to get a bun (erm, heir) in the oven.

So Royal watchers everywhere sat with bated breath, watching the Duchess’s midsection like a hawk, waiting for the slightest sign of a baby bump. Everything she did seemed to be twisted to give proof to the existence of a Royal pregnancy, from abstaining from champagne at Royal events to placing her hands in front of her stomach on trips overseas. However, despite everyone’s rumblings that these actions just had to lead to the announcement of a pregnancy, no announcement came. There were a few fakeouts, the most prominent of which being from InTouch magazine (my heart skipped a beat when I received that text message), but Kate has stayed slim and heir-less.

As the first anniversary passed, I felt quite unsatisfied with my new Royal couple. They have one job -- have a baby. It’s not that hard! People do it all the time! Why were they waiting? I was not alone - anyone with any sort of vested interest in the Royal Family has felt a collective feeling of impatience in waiting for the Royal couple’s announcement.

Recently, a group of historians from genesreunited.co.uk decided to act on this impatience and anticipation and calculate a due date for - get this - Will and Kate’s yet to be conceived child. They’ve calculated the date to be August 27, 2013, with a conception time set for around this year’s upcoming Christmas holiday, with an announcement to be made in March 2013.

It would be one thing for people to predict a due date when a child has actually been conceived, but for a baby’s birth to be predicted, doesn’t the baby in question need to be in existence? It all seems a little jumping the gun to me -- but hey, we can all dream, right? Will and Kate are set to take their second Royal tour to the South Pacific in honor of the jubilee later this summer, and after all the Diamond Jubilee hoopla wraps up, it should seem that starting a family would be at the forefront of their to-do list. Perhaps a wintertime heir conception isn’t such a far-out idea, after all.