Royal Baby updates...Things are progressing as normal...

Hands up who's been waiting all week for  HRH baby to arrive?  Yup, me too...

The baby will be third in line for the British throne, and should eventually succeed grandfather Charles and father William as king or queen of Britain and 15 other countries including Canada and Australia.

Little else is known about the eagerly awaited royal baby, from how it will arrive to its gender or its name.

    

Kate _ formally known as the Duchess of Cambridge _ is expected to deliver in the private Lindo Wing of the hospital, where Princess Diana gave birth to William and his younger brother, Prince Harry. It is not clear if she will have a natural birth or deliver by a planned cesarean section.

    

Royal watchers must wait to be told of the baby's arrival from the palace, which is planning to reveal the news through a mixture of tradition and social media.

Once the baby has been delivered, Prince William will reportedly make a call to the Queen on an encrypted phone.

At the same time members of the royal family and the Middleton family will be told of the birth. The Palace will also inform the UK government, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the governors-general of the realms including Australia.

The medical team will sign a formal notice that will be taken by car to Buckingham Palace. The notice will also reveal the baby’s gender.

The formal notice will then be placed, according to time-worn tradition, on a wooden easel in the Buckingham Palace forecourt. The placement of the notice on the easel marks the moment that the birth is "officially" announced – and at that point the palace will also release the news via Twitter and other electronic media.

The same easel was used to announce William’s birth, though for some other royal births the notice has been chained to the palace railings.

The baby’s name has not been revealed – and may not be announced until days after the birth. Officially it will be titled “His (or Her) royal highness, prince (or princess) of Cambridge” – the family name of Windsor may not appear on the official birth certificate.

The first that the public will see of the baby will be when the couple leave the hospital after the birth – at a time agreed on by the couple and their doctors.

The duchess had her last official public appearance last month.

Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty Magazine, told Reuters that Prince William wanted to keep the media at bay.

“He saw the way his mother, Princess Diana, suffered at the hands of the paparazzi, and he wants to make sure this does not happen to his wife or his own children,” he said.

It is the baby's gender that is of particular interest because the prospect of Kate's pregnancy prompted a change to laws of succession to ensure a daughter would not be passed over for the crown by a younger brother. Boy or girl, the child will be third in line to the throne and the prospective future monarch.

The Great Kate Wait is nearly over