Hi, Louisa..

Louisa, congratulations on your pregnancy. I'm not a medical person and I'm not female, but I've been around herpes forums for a long time. I tend to agree, based on what I've read that the risk of transmission is small and should be balanced against the risks associated with a C-section. Since you have a very mature case of herpes, you have lots of antibodies that are being provided via the placenta to your baby which will give a very high level of protection during delivery.

I'd like to suggest that you can find some folks who are very knowledgeable about this very subject and some of whom are nurses over at the forums at
http://racoon.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi
I'd suggest you post your query in either the "Support" or "Pregnancy and Herpes" forum. Support gets more traffic and might get a quicker response. There are women there who have delivered multiple children post genital herpes infection.

I'm a little puzzled about the antivirals not helping your outbreaks, though. Are you sure they're herpes lesions, or could it be something else like bacterial vaginitis, etc. ?

Anyway, good luck to you and let us know how things go.

Oh, and Happy New Year!