The Perils of Over-Planning

Being an artist of any kind requires stepping back and looking at life as a source for material to create art. Giving birth is hard on an artist, because there is no stepping back. You have to be there. On the other hand, how else would you ever get such a deep experience out of life? Diving in and being fully present makes for better, richer material. It's just painful--especially giving birth.
You may have noticed, faithful readers, that I like to plan. I was warned not only by experience but also by experts that this was going to be my most difficult birth/post-partum period ever, so I really went at it. We have almost all the summer shopping done--Kurt even has new socks. I won't be doing any cooking for at least another month as the freezer is still pretty full. (The food is great. I recommend Fix Freeze Feast.) The kids are discovering little rewards and treats as the days unfold--I'll give you the skinny on that later, they read the blog. To sum up, my eldest commented a few days ago that we had come this far and everything is still running smoothly. She felt that is pretty impressive, and I must agree. :)
The difficulty with being so prepared is, what happens when you check the last thing off the checklist? You give birth. At least I did. My doctor had decided that inducing was a good idea since we thought this guy was going to be as big or bigger than his brother (a ten pounder, oy vay.) We set the date for the fourteenth and I went right to work finishing up the checklist. I got my haircut. I bought the candy for the nurses. We arranged for childcare. The Braxton-Hicks became stronger, but remained irregular. The next day I finished up the little things I was planning to make the kids feel good, and as soon as I took the cookies out of the oven I started to worry. My second and I sat down to watch Harry Potter together and just as the Weasley twins were putting their names in the Goblet of Fire, my water broke.
You would think I'd be alarmed, but I wasn't. I'd given birth five times before and I am a slowpoke when it comes to giving birth. It takes me forever to get going, though in my defense, my doctor says it goes really fast once I commit. This time I must have been pre-committed. We went from the nurses being uncertain about keeping me to welcoming the baby into the world in three hours. The anasthesialogist didn't even make it to the hospital. My OB, (the incomparable Dr. David) walked in the door and played catch. All things considered it was a great birth.
Not that I was great at it. Experience does not make you better at things. I do much better with an epidural. God bless my nurses. They let me keep hoping for that epidural long after we all knew it wasn't happening. The pain was less of a problem than the fear. Giving birth to a ten pounder had been difficult with an epidural, I didn't know if I had what it took to do it without one. Fortunately, this guy was a svelte 7 lbs. 15 oz. He slid out of there like the proverbial greased pig. If I'd have known that, there would have been a lot less begging, flailing and general freaking out. Like I always say, any birth where everyone is breathing at the end is a good birth. By that standard I did fine.
In summary, put something impossible on your pre-birth checklist, or ignore something really important, unless you're in a hurry to have that baby.