Kate Middleton May Not Emerge From Hiding Until After Royal Baby Born in April, Report Says

Kate Middleton has been in hiding for about five weeks now as she struggles with the symptoms of a condition known as hypermesis gravidarum, or HG, a debilitating pregnancy-related condition that makes it nearly impossible to eat without vomiting and results in severe dehydration that can be treated only with an intravenous fluid drip.

The same condition struck Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, when she was pregnant with the first child eventually born to her and her husband, England’s future king Prince William. But during her pregnancy with the royal baby, who became Prince George, Middleton needed less than two weeks in the hospital before she felt well enough to venture out in public again.

In fact, only 13 days after going into the hospital for HG in 2012, Kate Middleton cheerily presented the British Sporstman on the Year Award to professional bicycle racer Sir Bradley “Wiggo” Wiggins.

Not so this time around, with reports stating that Kate Middleton looks so bad that she wouldn’t leave the house even if she felt better. The Duchess will have been out of commission for a full six weeks by October 24, which is the first date that the royal schedule makers have even granted the possibility that she might make a public appearance.

Even that date, however, is being treated as not exactly written in stone.

Kensington Palace has kept its official mouth shut both about the condition of the Duchess and the status of her public schedule but royal watchers now fear that the public will not get another glimpse of Kate Middleton until her pregnancy is over and the second royal baby is born. That date will likely come in April — but that’s just an estimate as even the baby’s due date remains shrouded in mystery.

“The prospect of Kate being out of action for much of the remainder of her pregnancy is now a real possibility,” wrote Tom Sykes, author the royal-watching blog The Royalist. “Occasionally, sufferers of HG — which impacts about 2% of pregnancies — can suffer symptoms throughout the entire nine months of their pregnancies.”

Normallly, HG symptoms let up sometime between the 14th and 16th week of a pregnancy. But in the case of Kate Middleton, when will that be?

Due to her illness, the Royal Family was forced to announce the Kate Middleton pregnancy well before the 12 week mark when a pregnancy would normally be made public. But the Palace also said that at the 12 week mark, an estimate of her due date would be announced.

That hasn’t happened, meaning that Kate was probably between four and seven weeks into her term when the pregnancy was announced. If that’s the case, and given how long HG typically lasts, the earliest the public may see Kate Middleton again is sometime in early December — and maybe even later.