Waiting

So I was due to have this baby two days ago now. This is a little disconcerting since I had up to this point convinced myself that not only would I have the baby on time, but it would probably come a week or two early. This dream was slowly shattered as week after week the doctor informed me that I was not dilated or effaced and any contractions I've bothered to keep track of have stopped after an hour or two.
So Thursday (my due date) when I go in they hook me up to a fetal monitor for what was supposed to be 5-7 minutes but due to technical difficulties turned into thirty. This monitored the baby's heartbeat and I was supposed to click a button to indicate everytime the baby moved. By the end of the thirty minutes the baby had moved more than 35 times and I was beginning to literally see sparkles on the edge of my vision (from lying on my back too long??). So the doctor comes in and says that the baby looks healthy and I shouldn't worry. She checks me and after some pressure and probing on her part informs me that she can "get a finger in" this week where she hasn't been able to before...which is good (and not very comfortable I might add).
So now the doctor gives me this spiel about how she really doesn't want to let me go past 41 weeks as the chances of stillbirth greatly increase after that point. After consulting with the internet and other people who've had babies they all say it's 42 weeks, but when I saw the midwife a few weeks ago she indicated that with my rash, it may be a good idea to get induced early (at that point I was only 38 wks), so maybe this is why the doctor said this. Anyway... so up to a few weeks ago I've been totally gung ho about getting an epidural and such. Recently I have changed my mind and decided that I would rather try and have the baby on my own. I heard from various sources that recovery time decreases dramatically without drugs and after figuring that our bodies were designed to do this and it's only in the past century that women have had the option of drugs I thought this sounded good and I could probably handle it. So, now that I've convinced myself that I can do this without drugs, the doctor makes an appointment to induce me.
Next Thursday (19th) night I'm supposed to check in to labor and delivery where they will hook me up to an I.V. with pitocin or some such so that by Friday, when my doctor is on-call, I will hopefully be into active labor. I've heard from numerous sources that being induced hurts much, much more than having the baby on your own and that it really isn't worth it to skip the epidural. I've also heard that sometimes the pitocin doesn't work and you end up having to have a c-section. This really sucks. So if I don't have the baby by Thursday night I'm going to be induced, get an epidural, and probably end up having a c-section which will quadrupal my recovery time and make me a sick invalid unable to do anything for the next three to six weeks. That totally sucks.
I thought maybe I'd go into labor last night when I started to have actual "painful" contractions, but no. As soon as I paid them any attention they stopped...as has been the case up to this point. (Stupid uterus) So I'm hoping that tonight the full moon will work in my favor and I'll have the baby. If not then by next week the situation will become desperate and I may start trying all sorts of crazy things to make myself go into labor before the Thursday night deadline. So I guess we'll all wait and see how this plays out. I'll keep you informed (probably not via this blog) of course. If you have any labor-inducing suggestions that aren't too crazy let me know. :)