EDD and LMP

Today is my official due date. I think Isaac arriving two weeks earlier than the doctors predicted is his way of thumbing his nose at their method of counting. It’s just dumb. They devise your "EDD" (estimated due date) by counting from your "LMP" (last menstrual period) instead of the presumed date of conception. Huh?? Thus, they add in approximately two more weeks than the "gestational age". Who came up with this system?

The dreaded EDD and LMP show up everywhere – on every scribbled note and official record associated with my pregnancy. These dates will live in infamy. I’m just waiting for someone to give us some cutesy handmade frame-able thingy for Isaac – the kind that has his name embroidered on it flanked by teddy bears and blocks. Under that will be his date of birth. And in fire engine red above it all - the date of my LMP.

Good ole LMP even appears on the form for the birth information my midwife left me to file with the courts and get his birth certificate. Does the county really need to know the last time I had my period??!? I think of my recent struggles in searching for information on my family history. Just a marriage license here or there would do. A consistency of spellings could be helpful. A hint of the year so and so was born. And yet some day, when I’ve been long ago scattered to the Pacific, thanks to our obsessively modern record keeping, my descendents will know the day I stopped buying tampons.

And here I thought the medical community had no understanding of women’s bodies.