This sounds like a scheduled induction.

Now I have been involved during medical school with a lot of them. Every one of them I saw, it was a very miserable experience for the woman. Basically, the body is not ready for birth, but you give various drugs to force the body to give birth.

These inductions are done when there is some risk to either the mother or baby. A big cause for an early induction is pre-eclampsia which can be a life threatening condition and is treated with early induction.

For inductions you have to have careful monitoring of the baby and mother because you may need to convert to an emergency c-section.

Because of all this, it is not unreasonable for the scheduled induction to be taken first.