#41 weeks

I’m not anti C-sections... if they’re medically necessary. If something is wrong with Baby or with me, and she needs to come out immediately, then I’m all for it. Her health is the most important thing here, and I will absolutely not sacrifice that for the *~majesty of natural childbirth~* . But I also never wanted to be one who would voluntarily schedule elective surgery to remove my child from my womb just because she’s been there enough time in my mind.

And that’s the thing: She’s healthy. She has fantastic movement, and great levels of amniotic fluid, and her stress tests have been going really well. I’m healthy. I have no real complaints (blood pressure is fine, swelling is normal, no GD, no more reflux, no sciatica). As far as we can tell, we’re both doing great, even at 12 days past the due date.

So if she’s healthy and I’m healthy and my body isn’t ready for labor in the first place, why am I going to induce?

42 weeks is a scary number. Like, a really scary number. Statistically, babies born after 42 weeks are more at risk for a whole host of health problems, including stillbirth. Now, this does not mean that every baby born after 42 weeks will have problems, especially if they’re still registering as perfectly healthy at 41+6. But it does mean that I can drastically reduce those risks by not allowing her to stay that long.

So basically it comes down to this: Which is better? Letting a healthy baby stay in the womb of a healthy mother until she is ready to deliver, hoping that the child stays healthy throughout that period, however long it may be? Or forcibly removing the baby from the womb before the mother is physically ready to deliver in order to assure that there will be no complications associated to a post-term pregnancy? When we spoke to my doctor about this yesterday, he told us that there is no wrong decision (which is helpful, but at the same time I think I would feel better if I didn’t have to make a decision at all - if he would make a decision for me I think I would be way less anxious).