Already Tier 1 (General) Applying For A Non-Eea Residence - Should I?

[ippyevie]

I just have a question regarding my situation. I am a Thai national who got married with an EU-national. I have been living in London for 4 years, in the beginning with my HSMP and then currently on Tier 1 (General). I have been working in finance since HSMP until now. My Tier 1 will expire in Aug 2012 and I have to apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR), which I am planning to. However, I would also like apply for a residence through my husbands' rights of spouse to live here. I know you must be wondering why am I doing that. I'm just afraid that something might happen in between and that if the rules change I can still fall back on my residency through this method. Also, I'm a couple of weeks pregnant and I will have to then apply for ILR in July, when I'm supposed to be heavily pregnant. You can see now that I don't want to be running around like a headless chicken when I'm due to give birth. So my questions are;

1) Should I apply for a Residence Card (using EEA2 form - an application used by non-European Economic Area (EEA) family memebers residing the UK)?

2) If I do that, would that affect my application for ILR later?

3) If I have a Residence Permit through EEA2, can I then still be able to apply for ILR using Residence Permit route after Aug 2012 (if for some reason I couldn't apply in July 2012) since I would be having been living in the UK for 5 years, however, not through family route but through HSMP/Tier1?

Thank you. I can't find these information anywhere in the internet. Help and suggestions would be greatly appreciate.