Adventures in Pregnancy - 40 Weeks, 0 days

Well here we are... 40 weeks.... my due date is slightly altered due to the length of my menstrual cycle. I have a 33 day cycle instead of a 28 cycle, so still 3 days left until my official due date. Honestly, I'm done!

I have had a bit of a complication that cropped up in the last day or so... I weighed the privacy nature of what I'm about to share and decided that the value of the information outweighs the potential, I don't know... social stigma, embarrassment, maybe...

1 in 4 woman have herpes... I pulled the short straw on that one... I'm very very very lucky that I have herpes simplex 1 which is generally found orally... however, my infection is of a southern nature. I contracted it from Cory a million years ago, he has the typical oral complex, meaning he gets cold sores.

Until pregnancy, I had, maybe, one outbreak a year, if that and the longer you have simplex 1, the less outbreaks you experience. Unfortunately, due to the suppressed immune system as a result of pregnancy, I had one outbreak during my first trimester and now I have prodrome symptoms of an outbreak. What that means is that I feel one coming on but it hasn't happened yet.

Now what does this do to my "birth plan"? Personally, I thought this was a first class ticket to the operating room. I'm surprised to say it wasn't.... I called the prenatal clinic. I do not have any active lesions, so they have started me on a course of Valtrex, which is a herpes suppression drug. I am on the drug until delivery. When I go into labor, I must be aware of my lesion status... if I have one, immediate C-section... if I don't, we will discuss the options. The doctor was very pro-vaginal birth if possible even under these circumstances.

The doctor is confident that at this late stage of the pregnancy, the Valtrex will have no negative effect on the baby as he is fully formed. I am concerned that even without a lesion, my birth canal may not be the best place for a new person. I do not want to have a C-section but I also do not want to spread the virus to my little guy before he even has a chance to take his first breath. This is weighing pretty heavily on me, I must say... I want to trust the doctor but at the same time, she isn't a specialist in infectious diseases. I trust that she would not knowingly put my unborn child at risk... but but but...

I'm doing a crap load of research online... my favorite resource Mother Risk doesn't seem to have any information on herpes and Valtrex during pregnancy. Mother Risk is a website run by the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children and I feel quite confident that the information provided is accurate. Outside of that website, I have found conflicting information from a variety of different sources... which one is accurate is the issue. So I am left with more questions than answers... my first major parental dilemma...

For now, I cannot find any negative information on Valtrex and pregnancy on the Valtrex website, so I will take my drugs... it's now a matter of deciding how to proceed with my birthplan... Do I force the C-section or let the doctors make the final decision?

Any thoughts?