Finally, William's getting what he's always craved - normal family
life: And now he'll fight to give his child the loving stability he
barely knew as a boy
- Kate will have been with William for 12 years by the time she gives birth
- Kate will have her first baby at 31-years-old
- They have broken the unofficial Royal Family convention of announcing a baby within the first year of their marriage
By any standards of love and
marriage, the progression has been leisurely. The fact is, by the time
the former Catherine Middleton becomes the mother of our future king or
queen in the summer of 2013, she will have been with Prince William for
12 years.
It’s been very
slow progress from first date to first child (who will be third in line
to the throne) — not exactly the rush of blue blood normally associated
with royal marriages.
Kate,
the girl from Bucklebury in Berkshire, will have her first baby at 31.
That’s only a year off the age at which William’s mother, Diana, was
separated from Prince Charles and making a new life for herself.
Pregnancy preparation? A toast with water in September when the royal couple visited Singapore as part of an official tour
William and Kate even
broke with the unofficial Royal Family convention of having a baby — or
at least announcing that one is on the way — within the first year of
their marriage.
That, of
course, would have stolen some of the limelight from the Queen during
her dazzling Diamond Jubilee, and it was something they would never have
done.
We must assume that even now, such an
announcement would still have been a few weeks away but for the fact
that it had emerged that Kate was in hospital suffering from acute
morning sickness.
Still,
they’ve reached this crucial milestone at last, and how intriguing it
will be in the coming years to see just how this very modern couple —
this future monarch and his queen — will combine the heavy demands of
duty with those of family life.
Olympic celebration:
William and Kate's public display of affection at seeing Team GB win
another gold medal at the Velodrome in August
No royal couple has ever had
such a challenging future maintaining historical tradition while being
very much of a fast-moving, modern world.
And
it’s pretty clear now, even to those doubters who were uneasy at
William’s middle-class choice of bride — some of whom mocked her former
air hostess mother Carole with childish taunts of ‘doors to manual’ —
that Kate has risen brilliantly to the challenge.
If
anyone silenced them it was the Queen, whose fondness for Kate was
already reaching an unprecedented high in the run-up to her Jubilee this
summer, and Prince Philip, who has never tired of informing people what
a lucky escape his grandson had not to lose Kate after giving her up
for three months in 2007.
Kate has had to time everything to fit in with national events
Indeed, Kate’s incredible patience
can be measured by all the years she has waited for her first child —
timing everything (as royal wives usually have to) in order to fit in
with national events.
Also,
Kate has had to make other compromises. Few things can be worse for an
expectant mother than to move house while heavily pregnant, and that
will be her fate in April, when she and William move into the huge,
21-room apartment in Kensington Palace that used to be home to Princess
Margaret.
Some felt William might have liked to
have taken his wife to live in his mother Princess Diana’s old
apartment, where he and Harry grew up, but the suite of rooms has long
since been converted into offices for Prince Charles’s charities, as
well as accommodation for military figures.
‘Kate was never keen on that idea — too many ghosts, she thought,’ says a family friend. ‘And William knew she was right.’
