It really will just depend. I had on and off contractions for about six hours before they began coming regular, and around 1:30 AM, they started coming harder and closer together. They alternated between about 4 and 6 minutes apart, but when I called my midwife, she told me to go ahead into the hospital as they’d been doing this for two hours. We had a 35 minute drive, so we got ready and headed in.
When I got there, I was 1 cm dilated and only 50% effaced. I was in labor for 32 hours after that :rolleyes: . My kid was posterior, was stuck high, and although my contractions were about a minute apart by the end and HORRIBLE, I ended up with a c-section because he just wouldn’t descend.
So the time can be nothing - even if we’d waited until they were a minute apart, I still wouldn’t have been close because of his position. But we still wouldn’t have been comfortable sitting at home.
It’s YOUR comfort level. If your wife feels like she needs to go to the hospital, then go to the hospital. Being sent home isn’t a walk of shame. And it’s better to be safe than sorry.
I went into labor while watching West Wing. My contractions started about 20 minutes apart and about a minute or so long. I told hubby and KellyM that I was in labor. They flatly did not believe me and I sent them to bed in due course and stayed up alone. About 4 am my contractions were 3 minutes apart and lasted about a minute. By 6 am they were less than two minutes apart and lasted nearly a minute. I got them up and told them to call into work as I was in labor. They laughed. They finally got the picture when I tried to eat breakfast and vomitted during one rather strong contraction. We went in then. My daughter was born at 5:19 pm, no epidural, no pain killers. I could tell that at 5 am when the contractions were getting quite close that it was the real thing, but I had time. I new by breakfast time that it was time to go in, but there was no big rush. I was in the delivery room about 9 am and by 10 am I was in hard labor and not wanting any distractions or conversation.
lee, why the heck did they laugh? As per my story, my wife and I never experienced labor, but I was rather stressed about it for our second kid. If she had ever told me that she was in labor I’m not sure what I would have done. Although I can safely say laughing would not have been high on the list.
With my first, I started having contractions Thursday morning. They never quite made it to a minute long, five minutes apart, but more like every 5-8 minutes. We went in to the birthing center Friday morning. Got sent home. Kept having contractions every 5-8 minutes. Went in Saturday morning. Got sent home. Kept having contractions every 5-8 minutes. Went in late Sat/early Sunday, got to stay, but only because they discovered that I was leaking amniotic fluid. Kept having contractions every 5-8 minutes. Sunday afternoon we transferred to the hospital for an epidural and some pitocin (I was around 7-8 cm by this point, but still having contractions every 5-8 minutes). My son was FINALLY born around 11:30 p.m.
With my second, I had contractions every 5-15 minutes for a day or so, and finally went in to the birthing center when we hit the 5-1-1 mark. I walked a bit, labored for a few hours, and had my daughter about five hours after we arrived. That’s a much better way to do it!
Bottom line, if you go too early, you won’t be the first people to get sent home - even if you get sent home twice! First labors tend to be long, but since they’re first labors you don’t really know what’s going on. Don’t be shy about going in or at least just calling if you’re unsure about something.
I have to disagree with the whole “go to the hospital the second your water breaks” thing. This is absolutely true if your wife is GBS+, or if the amniotic fluid is anything BUT clear, but otherwise, you have approximately 24 hours before the risk of infection is there.
For Baby #1, I had contractions the night before that never got closer than 7 or 8 minutes apart. Eventually they petered out and I got some sleep. I got up the next morning and my water broke around 6:30 am. Contrax were about 8 minutes apart. Called the midwife and she said, “OK, well call us back in a while.” I asked her. “When should I call back?” and she said, “Oh, you’ll know.”
She was right. I did know.
Baby was born at 6:47 PM. I was pushing for 3 hours becasue she got stuck. She’s still way stubborn.
Baby #2, my water didn’t break until right before he was born. I was 3 days overdue (probably doesn’t sound like much to most people, but they were 3 loooong days, especially to my poor husband) and that day, I really didn’t feel like I was going to go into labor. Contrx came out of nowhere, and were almost immediately 5 minutes apart. Called the midwife and she said come on in. Got to the hospital around 7PM; baby was born around 11:45PM.
I’ve heard my labors might have been shorter if I hadn’t had epidurals, but that wasn’t the right choice for me.
Re: being sent home. A friend of mine was overdue and scheduled for an induction. Went in, got all the stuff that goes along with an induction (I don’t know all that lingo, myself) and baby didn’t come. She was sent home the next day, still pregnant, because all the nonstress tests and all that checked out fine. She ended up having a C-section a week later.
When she ever got sent home without having been successfully induced…man, she was a force to be reckoned with (by her own admission). I’m surprised that her husband and her male OB still have their boy stuff attached.
First because it was my due date. I had told them that I was going to give birth on my due date and they thought it was first time whimsy. Second because KellyM had been around someone in labor who apparently had far different experiences than I. Third because they just expected it to hurt more and be more dramatic than the braxton-hicks contractions that I had been experiencing. It really did not. I don’t know if it was the raspberry tea or what, but the early labor was fairly easy. The difference was that it was well organized and it progressed.
I went to the hospital when I did and did not have an epidural partly due to me being positive for group B strep and having gestational diabetes. The gestational diabetes was a non-issue in labor as for me (I stopped being diabetic when I went into labor), but we did not know that would be the case. Group B strep meant that the longer the baby was in the birth canal, the more it would be exposed. I wanted to have the antibiotic IV and I wanted a quick birth. My baby was in exactly the right position so that worked well for me. I did not have back labor and it was personally much easier for me to face untold hours of contractions without pain relief than it was for me to allow an epidural. Because of the group B strep, I allowed them to give me pitocin as well and break my water. The pitocin does make the labor hurt a lot more, but for me it shortening the exposure time was more important than the pain or having a completely “natural” experience.
If I had not had group B strep or gestational diabetes, I would have considered a home birth. As it was, I was pleased by my treatment and my experience and plan to make the same choices this time.
With my son I had an appointment a few days before Christmas with my OB/GYN and she said things were looking fine and that I might go into labour soon. This was a little over a week before my due date which was January 1, though I felt it would be more like December 26.
Well, I woke up at 8am on Christmas eve having contractions, mild ones but noticable enough that they woke me up. I spent most of the day just wandering around the house doing my usual thing, had some lunch. In the afternoon I ended up having a nap between contractions while laying on the living room floor. (It was more comfortable to me than the couch or bed, and I wasn’t very big so it wasn’t awkward to get down there).
About 4 my Mom wanted to get ready to go to my Aunt’s for supper like we had planned, but I said no. I was ready to go to the hospital with my contractions 5 minutes apart. They weren’t one minute long, but they were getting stronger. We got to the hospital about 5:30 and admitted fairly quickly once they had checked my contractions (I was told that they weren’t strong enough by one nurse, but they seemed to be doing their work just fine so they didn’t do anything to try and strengthen them). I got an epidural about 7 which (for me) didn’t slow anything down and I was quite able to walk to the bathroom with minimal help.
Later that evening they had to break my water, they had to be really careful though as my son was high and there was a fair bit of it between his head and where it needed to be, so they used a needle to make it a slow leak (so the cord wouldn’t slip down first). Slept most of the time, listened to Christmas music on the radio and he was born at 1:59am Christmas morning.
There was really no mad dash, I just felt it was time to get to the hospital so we called a cab (no car). It wasn’t my doctor at the birth though, but she was part of a co-op so they took turns being on call and the one who was there was pregnant herself!
I asked her. “When should I call back?” and she said, “Oh, you’ll know.”