frustrated! 83

This is one of those "live and learn" sorts of things. *Never* tell anyone your precise due date. It doesn't mean anything except that it's the day on which your pregnancy will reach 40 weeks. I always gave my 42-week date as my EDD if asked, because I knew I could pretty much count on having a baby by then.

Oh, absolutely. There are valid medical reasons for inducing at or a day or so before the 42-week mark. I personally would prefer, all other things being equal, to let a pregnancy go a few days past the 42 week mark than to be induced with pitocin (the voice of pitocin experience there), but I don't think anyone should be discouraged from inducing at 41w6d or 42w if that's her comfort zone.

Notwithstanding, the vast majority of pregnancies will end spontaneously by 42 weeks. The problem is that people often don't believe that it would have been true for them, but have no way of knowing whether or not it would have been because they consent to induction early in the 41st week.

Uh-oh. You *do* know that late-term estimates of fetal weight by ultrasound are very often off by 10% or more, right? And that if your doctor thinks you have a big baby, you're more likely to wind up with a c-section even if your baby is actually of an average size than someone whose baby is *actually* large but whose doctor thought the baby was average?

I just urge you to take any estimations of your baby's size with a (large) grain of salt and try to believe that your body knows what it's doing and is building a baby that's the right size for you to birth.

The problem is that a c-section isn't *necessarily* the healthiest thing for either of you. It *can* be, of course, but when you've got 1 in 4 women winding up with c-sections when you know that only about 1 in 9 should actually *need* one, there's something wrong.

Well, I think there *is* something wrong with "worrying" about it at 40w4d. That's not to say it's not something to be thinking about (as in, "if I get to 42 weeks, what will I do then?"), but when it's something you're really projecting as if it were a probability, I think the mind-body connection is such that you might well be setting yourself up for it. And that's especially true if you are feeling "overdue" and like there's something wrong with you because you haven't gone into labor on your own yet.

None of that's a criticism. It's the voice of experience talking. I was almost exactly in your shoes a little over 7 years ago when I was pregnant with my first. I didn't have Internet access in those days and didn't have anyone to tell me the reasons why I shouldn't induce but should stick it out by a few more days. I didn't have anyone to tell me that the fact that I hadn't gone into labor yet didn't mean there was anything wrong with me. And I really wish I had. While I had a successful induction, it's a birth experience I really wouldn't want to repeat.

It's not a criticism to tell you that, at 41w4d (or now 40w5d), you still haven't even reached the gestational date by which half of all first-timers give birth. It's not a criticism to point out that you're not really "past due" until 42 weeks. That's information that should buttuage your concerns that there's anything about your current situation that's predictive of the need for induction. People are telling you that you have a *very* good chance of going into labor naturally. How is that not supportive? -- Be well, Barbara