A good friend of mine just had her first child two weeks ago, and was in labor for nearly two days - if you define ‘labor’ as regular contractions less than 5 minutes apart and about a minute long, cervix dilating etc. She just progressed reeeaaaaallllly slowly, and then stalled for like 8 hours at 7cm. Then she went through stage 2 in a flash, only pushed for 15 minutes!
From what I’ve heard, long labors like this are fairly common… especially for first-time moms.
Saturday morning: I had Braxton Hicks contractions that were much stronger than usual, all day. My water didn’t break, but I began to “leak”, all day. Called the doctor at 1 p.m. and they said they’d call me right back. … Called the doctor again at 4 p.m., “oh, we forgot about you!” :mad: “Well, come on up to the hospital.” Entered hospital at 6 p.m. Saturday. They started me on Pitocin and contractions began in earnest late that evening. (that was one long-ass night)… Sunday morning: got really BAD painful labor pains about 6 a.m. Sunday. About 9 a.m. they said I wasn’t progressing fast enough and would need a C-section. And a remarkably short and pain-free time later, I was a new mom! … I say I was in total labor about 15 hours, in pain about 3 hours. But that doesn’t count the time I started leaking amniotic fluid the previous morning. So I dunno.
1st time: started having contractions on a Saturday so severe I couldn’t stand up. They were intermittent until “real” labor started Monday night. It was all in my lower and upper back. Had the baby on Wednesday morning at 6:09 a.m. So probably 32 hours at least; possibly as much as 48 or so, but I don’t think the Saturday/Sunday counts since it was off and on, though the contractions were fairly close.
2nd time: started having really severe pains in my butt around 11, but thought I’d pulled a muscle - I’d worked out that afternoon and the pain was in a different location and not nearly as bad as #1. But by 11:45, I was at the hospital and dilated 7 cm. By 4:58 a.m., I had a baby in my arms. So about 5-6 hours.
1st kid - something in the range of 24-90 hours. Had first contraction very early Thursday. I kept having contractions ever 4-7 minutes until I was finally admitted to the birthing center Saturday night, at 3-4 cm. Labor continued progressing really slowly. Epidural/pitocin administered Sunday after, at 8 cm. Kid born late Sunday night. I’m not sure when the transition from prodromal to active labor happened, but I had contractions strong enough to keep me from sleeping (unless medicated) the whole time. It sucked. Oh, and I’m pretty sure if I’d had an OB instead of a midwife, I would have had a c-section. My hubby eavesdropped on a rather heated conversation between the midwife and the OB she worked with about my lack of speedy progress.
2nd kid. 15 hours, maybe. Had contractions on and off all day on Saturday, but they started in earnest on Sunday morning. Baby was born Sunday evening. It wasn’t fun, but it sucked much less.
I have a similar story, but even longer. I was already in the hospital for preeclampsia, and my platelets started dropping so they decided to induce. (NB, my platelets went back up in a couple of hours, and knowing what I do now, I wish I had refused to let them start.) I got the prostaglandin gel on Thursday night, two doses I think two hours apart. I was scheduled to start Pitocin at 8AM the next day, but several women in active labor arrived at the hospital and I was put off until noon. I had no problem with labor for the first eight hours or so, even with the Pitocin turned up as high as it can go, until my water broke at 8PM. Then it suddenly became horrific and excruciating. I finally asked for an epidural around 2AM or so Saturday morning, when they checked me and I was only at 4 cm, and then was able to sleep for a few hours. After I woke up, they checked me again and said I was fully dilated and it was time to start pushing. I pushed for four hours without success, and then they had me stop and fiddled around awhile until an OR was free. The baby was finally born at 4PM by C-section. So, depending on how you count it, anywhere from 20 to 42 hours.
I have the notes here. My midwife wrote them into our “Wellchild” book (Bless the New Zealand nanny state).
Arrived at hospital 7am on the 25th - 42 weeks pregnant.
Prostin administered 8am - nothing happened.
Prostin administered 3pm - nothing happened.
Regular contractions began 7pm.
Foetal heart slowing 12.27am on the 26th (cord around neck).
Birth, after failed ventouse (medical suction cup), with Nevill Bornes (medical salad servers) 12.31am.
So officially 5 1/5 hours - according to my dad, two days and they hurt his baby but saved his grand baby so he is still conflicted.
12 hours.
It was about 24 hours for my first and 36 for my second. That’s the amount of labor in total, I can’t really remember how much was the actual “hard” labor. I was so tired during my second one, I fell asleep during the last part of labor and they had to keep waking me up to tell me to push. For my third, I was induced at 7am and he was born a little after 10am. I know for all of them, the actual pushing didn’t take very long.
19 hours.
With my first, I woke up about 7 am on a Sunday morning and lay there in an early-morning haze when my waters suddenly broke. I poked my husband in the shoulder and said, “Hey, want to have a baby today?” We got ourselves spiffed up and headed over to the hospital. All went well to a point, then my labor slowed and they eventually decided to induce, which was very quickly very painful. I asked for some relief and the first remedy was a completely and I can’t overemphasize COMPLETELY useless homeopathic piece of crap that meant that when I asked for actual pain relief I had to wait for an extra hour. Grrr. When they prepared to give me an epidural, the anesthesiologist stepped in the room and great God in the morning, he was cross-eyed. He tried to thread the epidural in the right place in my spine and it took him FIVE TRIES until he hit the right spot. Interesting little-known fact? When an epidural line goes into your spine in the wrong place, you can feel it traveling through your spine. shudder
The fifth try was golden, and I had a bit of dulled relief from the constant pain in which I could doze fitfully. Finally things progressed to the point that I could push my son out (with help at the lady bits end and also from the top, where a doctor pushed her elbow firmly against the top of my baby bump and left me with a delicious bruise), at which point 16 1/2 hours had passed since my water broke and my contractions slowly began.
With my second, I didn’t need any particular medical intervention, was happy and chatting until the last part, and delivered my daughter just about 8 hours from the time of the first real contraction. I have often said that if every delivery were like my first, it would be a miracle if any woman had more than one child, and if they were all like my second, families of a dozen children would be normal.
Short version: first one, 16 1/2 difficult hours; second one, 8 easy hours.
My water broke at 4 a.m. and I had slowish labor all day, not painful. I took castor oil to get it going faster (which worked but had other effects - cleans out the bowels, yikes, so I was on the toilet having contractions). But I wanted to avoid any medical interventions if possible (the potential induction/intense pain/epidural/c-section path), so castor oil was highly preferable to Pitocin. Contractions started getting pretty painful at 5:00 p.m. or so and I had him at 9:30 p.m. on the dot. No drugs and just went very deep inside myself regarding the pain. I did some low groaning and what my husband calls “the jungle dance” – I was standing bent over the bed and would do these side deep knee bends. The pain was pretty intense but the real pain didn’t last that long (4.5 hours), relatively speaking. I would call it an easy labor. He was my first, so here’s hoping any others go the same way!
52 hours. 14 hours before delivery they induced with Pitocin to speed things up. I had to have “amnioinfusion” because it had been so long since my water broke.
I was so exhausted that I was falling asleep between pushes (I pushed for 90 minutes)
First: Woke to contractions around 2 am, let my husband sleep until his 4 am alarm, called midwife/went to hospital (of course, it was snowing - in Atlanta, and the car was out of gas, and I’d gone to bed without finishing the dishes. Forget contractions, THAT’S how I knew I was really in labor!) Bouncing baby boy born at 10:30 am. 8.5 hours, about 1 hour of the really painful bit.
Second: Contractions started around 3 am, baby girl arrived at 7:30 am. 4.5 hours, 1/2 hour of “push.”
Third: Contractions at 7, at hospital by 10, baby at 11:30.
Fourth: Didn’t make it to the hospital! Thought I was still having Braxton-Hicks, but I was wrong! Active labor less than 1/2 hour.
Fifth: Mild contractions all day, but I wanted the baby to be born on my niece and bro-in-law’s birthday, so I didn’t walk around or do anything to speed things along. Arrived at birth center at 11:30 ish, water broke around midnight, Miss Lily was born at 12:26 am - one push and I was done! (And, incidentally, arrived back home before 5 am. Easiest birth ever!) Hard to believe that she’ll be one year old just after midnight!
First kid: 31 hours. Gave up on unmedicated childbirth and got an epidural after 27 hours. By the very end, my OB had ordered a c-section, but he gave me a chance to push. I remember pushing for about five minutes before my son was born.
Second kid: Emergency c-section.
My wife was in labor for 28 hours. She wasn’t dialating and it turned out the kid was laying on her back instead of pointing head (or even feet) first. The OB was willing to let it go on forever, until both the wife and the kid started showing signs of distress, then it was C-section time.
Well jeez, I guess I should count myself lucky for having a relatively short labor. Reading all these posts, it appears to me there is no “norm.” But the posts about induced labor and c-sections makes me wonder if these are examples of western medicine (i.e., mostly men) attempting to usurp Mother Nature. At what point does the doctor determine that inducing labor or performing a c-section is necessary? There have been studies showing a great increase in c-sections (can’t give a cite for dates and stats on this). I understand that the health of the mother and baby have to be considered, but are c-sections and induced labor sometimes the choice of the doctor for reasons of convenience or profit? (This issue just occurred to me as I was reading the posts, so I haven’t researched online for stats in the U.S. versus those of other countries.)
In my case, the induction was because I was already two weeks overdue. The kid became distressed and they tried a couple of manual interventions, if the second hadn’t worked, the next option was a c-section. I know of others who had the C-section as soon as there were signs of trouble and they got their stitches in a different place. Better? YMMV.
First baby - 20 hours with pain medication (this was 34 years ago, I don’t remember what kind of medication, but this was before epidurals were widely available), then they knocked me out because she was presenting ear-first and stuck. Dr. pushed her back in then pulled her out.
Second baby - 6 hours, no medication. No drama.
My sister had four-hour labors both times. Good hips, I guess.
I was told to have an induction when my blood pressure began shooting up. It had been perfect the whole way through, but at my 40 week appointment it was suddenly high and three days of attempting to get it down proved fairly ineffective. I really didn’t want that sort of intervention unless it had to be done and I made that clear to my ob-gyn, so when he said he thought it was time I agreed to it. I thought if there was any chance I might lose my baby, that I’d rather know that it had happened despite following the advice of trained, experienced professionals than live with the guilt of having gone against their recommendations and had the worst happen.
I’m hoping it won’t happen again, but my blood pressure is a little more variable this time and I think the ob-gyn is keeping a closer eye on it now that I have a “history”. Despite that, I think I would push a little harder to determine if it really was strictly necessary before agreeing.