It's The Final Countdown!

I am generally a patient person. Okay, not really....I should clarify--when it comes to the Hubby and kids I am generally a patient wife and parent. As a person, I'm not so much with the long suffering. I prefer things to be quick, efficient, organized, and above all PLANNED....

So you can see how pregnancy might be difficult for me (and those unfortunate people who love me and might occasionally be within 100 yards of me). There is very little planning involved in pregnancy including-for us-pregnancy itself (unplanned in our household 66% of the time). My husband is virile enough to impregnate me via a toilet seat.

Of course the next 10 months following said porcelain encounter is always long, hectic, and unpredictable to a degree which makes me turn into insane-o-woman (like I'm not already crazy enough as it is). There are a lot of things I find infuriating aggravating inconvenient about pregnancy, but thought of going into labor "at any moment" tends to make me more basket-case-y than anything else. Talk about an inability to plan and be organized! Just the thought of waking up in the middle of the night on just a random night and having to rush to the hospital all haphazardly makes me grind my teeth.

I know a lot of people do it. Heck, most people do it. I once planned on doing it, despite my natural aversion to the idea. When I was pregnant with Monkey I thought for sure I'd be making the midnight run....and just the thought of that level of panicked hurry bothered me so much that I packed FOUR labor bags (containing nearly my entire house) in preparation for the baby dash. Then my due date came.

And went.

I went to 41 weeks.

Then 42 weeks.

Then 43 weeks....at which point I developed preeclampsia and they had to induce me. It was an emergency induction, so it wasn't quite the same experience as a planned birth, but I definitely had an appreciation for the mechanical clockwork like planning involved.

When I was pregnant with the Baby Bug I looked very fondly back on the relatively planned nature of my previous induction with a fond little sigh...but I was still willing to go the middle of the night route so long as I didn't go overdue-THAT will never happen again. Ever. That time around I only had a single labor bag (experience is the best teacher) but it was ready (if unhappy) to grab and go. Unfortunately, I developed gallstones during my pregnancy and by the end I was actually passing gallstones and doing liver damage. I was losing weight every week (I lost nearly 30lbs during my pregnancy), and was in horrible pain. Then there was that whole thing about being nearly 4cm dilated and 100% effaced but somehow managing NOT to go into labor. [Wha?! ARG!] So with Baby Bug we had a planned (but medically necessary) induction.

It was beautiful. Quick (4h 50m from first pitocin drip to crying baby), efficient, painless (I love epidurals), planned...everything I've ever dreamed of. It was a flawless labor.

This time around I have a choice. I don't need an induction for medical reasons-this pregnancy has actually been my easiest!-and there is no foreseeable reason why I would need an emergency induction/c-section (though I suppose by their very natures emergencies are unpredictable). I could wait and have The Bean in a middle of the night hospital dash if I wanted to.

Turns out I don't want to though-thank GOD there is such a thing as a social induction. (Sorry if I am offending any "natural labor" people.) With my previous labor being less than 5 hours, us living 45 minutes away from the hospital, and with the kidlets needing to wait for grandma and grandpa to pick them up before we leave (of course Gma and Gpa live an hour and a half to two hours away depending on traffic) the only thing that would stop us from getting a social induction would be if my body wasn't ready-I'm not going to force anything that I'm not prepared for....good thing there are no worries on that front. My cervix already 2cm-70%-and soft, and I'm already having mild-to-moderate contractions 3-5 times an hour. [Sorry men who might have accidentally wandered onto this post....]

Translation? Let's do this thing. (And by "do" I mean "birth" and by "thing" I mean "baby".) I have an appointment in the morning with my OB and we should be scheduling my induction date. I'm aiming for May 18th....wish me luck~tomorrow (all things going the way I want them to) we should find out The Bean's expected birthday!!!