Royal baby due date arrives, family waits anxiously

Ok, royalists, get excited: It's almost here!

The appearance of the royal baby, the first child born to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, is expected at any moment as Kate's due date arrives.

While the palace hasn't confirmed any day more specific than mid-July, sources have named dates from July 11 to July 14 as the official due date.

Television cameras and reporters have been camped for days outside the Lindo Wing at St. Mary's, the private wing at the London hospital where the duchess plans to deliver the future monarch. But so far, there's no sign of the expectant parents-to-be.

"We are very excited, immensely looking forward to it and waiting for the phone call," Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, told reporters Thursday while attending the Queen's Coronation Festival at Buckingham Palace with her husband and mother-in-law, Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth.

And while Kate has been awaiting the birth this week at Kensington Palace in London, about a mile from the hospital, Prince William was up in Wales, working at his day job as a search-and-rescue RAF pilot.

A helicopter has been on standby since Friday outside the Anglesey farmhouse where he lives while in Wales, so he could make a quick trip back to London if Kate went into labor.

Locals in Anglesey said the helicopter disappeared Thursday, prompting speculation the anxious royal had returned to the capital to be at Kate's side.

"It was there yesterday and now it is not there," a local source said. "It could just be that William knows we are watching that helicopter and trying to work out if Kate is in labor because of it. But for whatever reason it has been moved."

The duchess was able to sneak into the hospital Monday for a checkup, and her whereabouts are currently unknown.

Once the little prince or princess arrives, a representative from the palace will hand carry a paper containing the details of the baby's birth -- sex, weight and time of birth, but not name -- to be posted on a wood and gold easel behind the gates of Buckingham Palace.

Rumors -- completely unsubstantiated, of course -- had already begun circulating on Twitter Thursday that Kate had gone into labor.

But the world will only know for certain once that paper begins to make its way from St. Mary's to the palace.