Chelsea Clinton baby watch upstages celebrities at Clinton nonprofit meeting

Brian Yaklyvich/CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The guest who was perhaps most anticipated at Sunday's star-studded Clinton Global Initiative awards ceremony was a no-show.

Mom-to-be Chelsea Clinton squelched any idea that she might already have given birth when she took the stage at the kickoff to the annual meeting of the Clintons' philanthropic arm.

In her remarks Clinton, who is expecting this fall with husband Marc Mezvinsky, thanked the audience for their warm wishes on her "impending, though hopefully not immediate, arrival," and proclaimed herself "very excited about making my mother a grandmother soon."

Her parents are clearly more than ready.

Despite a heavy schedule of speaking engagements, fundraising for the midterm elections and the high-profile Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting, the soon-to-be-grandparents are poised for the baby's arrival. Earlier this month, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned an audience in Iowa she might dash offstage at any moment if her daughter went into labor.

And in a Sunday interview with CNN, former President Bill Clinton suggested the baby would probably arrive in the next 10 days.

"We're on watch now," he said Sunday on "Fareed Zakaria GPS." "I hope by the first of October, I'll be a grandfather."

Chelsea Clinton, the vice chairwoman of the Clinton Foundation, is scheduled to moderate a discussion with business leaders at the annual meeting Tuesday.

Having a mother and two grandparents interested in public policy may rub off on the new arrival. Hillary Clinton teased her husband during the awards ceremony Sunday, saying he might be an overly wonky grandfather.

"Now in case you haven't noticed, one of my husband's favorite words is interdependence," she said. "I can just see him with our new grandchild saying I wanna read, talk and sing to you to help build your brain, which is one of our Clinton Foundation initiatives, but first I need to talk to you about interdependence."

When the baby does come, its gender will be a surprise, Bill Clinton told CNN.

"They want to be surprised," he said. "So we're all just sitting around and waiting."

All three Clintons are scheduled to appear throughout the four-day-long summit of world and industry leaders. Sunday's Global Citizen Awards featured a variety of leaders and entertainers, from actor Leonardo DiCaprio to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.