Stan's Blog

Fifty-six days

Today, the wife (pictured) is exactly 32 weeks into the pregnancy. The tracker on her blog says it is only 56 days until our expected due date of November 19. Only 56 days?

Seriously, 56 is not a number usually associated with the adjective "only." You won't catch the guys on SportsCenter saying USC scored "only" 56 points. And a 56-year-old man has lived more than two-thirds of his expected life span.

I'm sitting here wondering why 56 days is deemed a short period of time with regard to completing a pregnancy. And when I am sitting and wondering, you can bet deductive reasoning isn't far behind.

Being the self-proclaimed 'statistics guy' that I am, I like looking at the numbers. A 40-week pregnancy equals 280 days, so 56 is exactly 20 percent of that total. Okay, I can see where that might warrant the use of "only," but there's bound to be more to the numbers than that.

Try this. I turned 34 years old last January. That means I've endured about 12,350 days, give or take a few. The difference between 12,350 and 12,406 is "only" 56 days. Now the context is coming into shape.

How about this? If our Baby Girl lives to be 80 years old, her life span will encompass nearly 28,500 days. And that's roughly 509 times longer than the aforementioned 56-day period. Wow.

That's right. You heard it here first. Baby Girl will be here in ONLY 56 days!

posted by Stan W @ 1:00 PM