pro'ly not today

no baby. today is the official "due date"--which means exactly nothing. rarely can medicine predict even something amazingly commonplace as a birth date with any regularity. the whole idea that babies are born 40 weeks after conception is almost completely a myth perpetuated universally by OBs. (i know this sounds far-fetched, so check out this link.) so, though i shouldn't have been, i was a little shocked when the first doctor came in, slapped on some latex gloves, and muttered, "uh oh. forty weeks and no baby." b was a little put off and said, "well it is baby number 1 and those usually come late...." the doctor shook her head and asked questions like "have your membranes already been stripped? were you dilated at all last time? ...when we induce you...." i think it freaked b out a little. she kept saying "but this is normal...." thankfully, the first doctor went to get the doctor who we were actually scheduled to see: Dr. R. she came in about 10 minutes later, a hair down, trendy glasses on, relatively unkempt, wonderful person. she told us that, indeed b was right--babies come at about 41.5 weeks, usually. and that due dates are plus or minus two weeks because, frankly, there's no good way to tell when a baby is going to come out. the original due date is based on the menstrual cycle and the lunar calendar, not some more "scientific" theory ratified over the centuries through the millions of births that have taken place even over the last decade. and that leads me to the questions: why even assign definite dates? why 40 weeks if medicine is almost positive that it's never exactly 40 weeks? why are some doctors very aware that 40 is an arbitrary number conceived by a botanist in 1860 and others swear by it? why are women induced--without medical complication, without reason seemingly? is the whole medicine thing so patricentric or systematized that it has just disregarded the actual ebb and flow, the uncontrollableness of a woman's body?