# Women: how many hours were you in labor (child birth)?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-how-many-hours-were-you-in-labor-child-birth/576910>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [April 2, 2011, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-how-many-hours-were-you-in-labor-child-birth/576910 "2011-04-02T04:11:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 6

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**Author:** ![iftheresaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecae2f/32.png) [@iftheresaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iftheresaway)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-how-many-hours-were-you-in-labor-child-birth/576910/101 "2013-07-10T04:26:00Z")

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> [@Tortuga](#):
>
> We’re at 41+6 over here and I’m finding all the short sounding labors pretty comforting. My mom’s dead and no one seems to remember specifics, but I had the impression of much longer labors being the norm, and I’ve no way of finding out how exactly her labors were timed and defined.
> 
> I’m really hoping today’s the day for us. I think I’m having “real” contractions, but honestly don’t know. There seems to be rigidity of the whole uterus and some aching that comes with it of the lower back, but nothing in there that I would identify as a peak, nothing like a sensation that wraps itself around to the back as I have so often heard described. They don’t seem regular but I don’t think I’m noticing them enough to know when each one is happening.
> 
> I really wish I had a turkey timer popping out or a bell going off. I hope I’ll know when I’m “really” in labor–but then again, I’m hoping this is it. I’m still comfortable (actually even more since he dropped) and still love being pregnant, but the postmaturity and talk of induction really worries me, and everyone’s damned antsy to see this boy. I want it to be today, so I’m finding all these stories of labors lasting less than a day a hugely hopeful boost.

I know this is an old post, but this is exactly how I felt when (it turned out) I was in labor. I told my husband that it was a good thing my water broke, or I wouldn’t have known when to go to the hospital.

My labor was 13 hours from water breaking to Hey, a baby!; probably 6ish hours of really uncomfortable contractions and no idea how much pushing. Of course, if you want to count from when I started dilating, I was in labor for about 3 weeks. 😃 there’s a good guilt-tripping number.

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**Author:** ![SaxFace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SaxFace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaxFace)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-how-many-hours-were-you-in-labor-child-birth/576910/102 "2013-07-10T08:14:05Z")

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First daughter: 24 hours  
Second daugher: 41 minutes

I guess my second labor might be considered longer depending on when you define the start of labor because I began to leak some amniotic fluid around 3 pm and went to the maternity hospital to have it checked out. But I wasn’t having contractions and wasn’t dilated by 10 pm when I had a second round of fetal monitoring.

At 1 am, however, I awoke to the strongest contraction EVER and continued to have strong contractions less than one minute apart until she was born at 1:41 am. She came out like a champagne cork! It was painful but short so I didn’t have the exhaustion I had with my first.

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