38 weeks and holding

I went to the doctor today for my 38 week check up and an ultrasound. I have been doing everything in my power to encourage this baby to make his/her appearance sooner rather than later and was really hoping to hear that my efforts were paying off. They called me back for the ultrasound first. After measuring the baby's head, belly and thigh bone, the ultrasound tech revealed that the baby was measuring over 41 weeks and around 10 pounds. Though I was expecting the baby to be large, I was not ready for the baby to already be at the birth weight of my youngest child, with 12 days still to go! After hearing that the baby was already ten pounds, I was really hoping for some good news from the doctor that the baby was getting close! After checking all my vitals, the doctor finally came in. We discussed my options, continuing with my plans for a natural vaginal birth, induction and c-section. She felt that since I had delivered a ten pound baby in the past, I would be ok to go ahead with plans to have a natural child birth. After our discussion, she checked the baby. I measured 39-40 weeks, the heartbeat was 154 and the baby was still positioned head down. She also checked and found me to be about 1 cm dilated, but that my cervix was still really thick and baby was high in the birth canal. Of course, immediately I felt disappointment that things were not farther along. She explained that doing something to induce labor would not be very productive or worthwhile as my body is obviously not prepared at this point. If I had been dilated to a 4 or more and the baby had been lower, it would have been a completely different story. I found relief in the fact that all of that could change at any time. I signed a release that I understand the risks of delivering a large baby and we discussed that at the time of delivery if things stalled or the baby was not progressing, they would not use forceps or vaccum to force the baby out. They would take that as a sign that the baby is too large and do a c-section. Finally, I scheduled an appointment for next week, though if it were up to me, I would have the baby before then!