I thought that was 40 weeks. Or do they let it slide a couple?
Full term is usually considered anything from 37-41 weeks. 35-36 is "near term" and some of these infants can leave without a NICU stay. >41 weeks is post-dates, and most doctors won't permit going beyond 41.5-42 weeks because there is danger of the placenta wearing out and not supplying the baby with adequate bloodflow.
Speculation about a c-section...she's not intending to get one, or she'd say that's what she was scheduling. An induction is usually done with a pitocin drip, and ideally results in a vaginal birth. However, induced labors are generally thought to be more intensely painful than non-induced labors, which means there's a greater rate of epidural anesthesia used from an earlier point in the labor. Inductions are less likely to result in a vaginal birth than a natural labor, because the hard contractions caused by the pit drip can cause the baby's heart rate to drop.
If they induce you, they generally monitor the baby using internal electrodes that are inserted into the scalp of the baby, and if the heart rate drops too much, you're whisked away for a c-section. If the decels (slowing of the heart rate) aren't too bad, this involves cranking the epidural up and you get to say hi to your baby and have those photos where the proud parents are all in little blue bonnets and OR garb. This is called an emergency c-section, even though the vibe is usually not very intense...usually the biggest issue in these is that the mom is often pretty upset about her failed labor induction and facing the reality of a longer recovery she didn't plan for.
If the decels are really bad, they do a crash c-section, which means they give you a general anesthetic and they can have the baby out of you in 5 minutes. Mom wakes up a little bit later and it's a very disorienting situation.
You can always tell someone who is trying very hard to make their very normal birth sound exciting when they talk about their
emergency c-section and how mom and baby nearly
died, but then you find out they got a spinal/epidural and it took an hour from when they decided the c-section was needed until the baby was born. "Emergency" in this case just means "not planned out in advance," and that the mother at least intended to try for a vaginal birth. If you hear a woman say she was knocked out with a general either before or right after the birth, that's real shit.