First baby induced. Vicious pitocin contractions for 18 hours before delivery.
Seond baby, just a couple of short hours. Labours/delivery couldn’t have been more different.
Geez I thought my sisters 16 hour labour was long. It was hard watching her in pain like that and not be able to do anything. The only thing I could do was stop by McDonalds after my niece was born with a bag full of junk food and a strawberry milk shake after it was all done.
Hats off to the women here !
My mother had very short labours - I was almost born in the car in the emergency bay at the hospital but they managed to get her on a gurney and I was born in the hallway instead, so I was hoping for a genetic winfall and short labours myself.
Not so.
My son was about 12 hours. I felt the first pains at about 7pm and thought they were more Braxton-Hicks so I tried to walk them off. My husband was working until 11pm, and I blindsided him at the door when he came in and we went straight back out and to the hospital. I had a completely unmedicated labour with my son in a trial program at Riverside Hospital with birthing rooms and nursing midwives and it was very relaxed and although there was some pain it wasn’t very intense at all.
The first couple of hours of labour with my daughter were spent trying to contact my son’s babysitter in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. After 4-5 hours of labour at the hospital it all stopped. They said they could keep me for 24 hours to see if labour restarted or give me pitocin. I went for the pitocin and holy cow - I think they overdosed me. About 20 mins later there were waves of contractions and intense and constant pain. I did have a shot of something for the pain but I have no idea what. All told including the discussion time it was about 9 hours from the first real contraction to her appearance.
My first baby, I was in labor for about 24 hours, which ended in a C-section.
Second baby, from time of first regular contractions to (vaginal) birth was about 55 hours or so. That said, easily the first 48 of that was early labor, with contractions 10-15 minutes apart and no significant pain.
Third baby, start to finish, less than 10 hours. I nearly gave birth to him in the parking garage of the hospital because we waited so long to go, “because obviously I’m not about to have the baby; labor takes WAY longer than this!” :rolleyes:
I now officially hate you. 
Of course, I hate my mother too; my twin sisters were born with virtually no pushing at all. Baby #1 shot out (her words) on the gurney as they rolled into the delivery room with no help from her. Baby #2 quickly followed with a push or two. She says her abdomen went up and down (on its own? That’s what she said) and boom there’s the baby. I think they were born about 7 minutes apart.
Lets see… woke up at around 8am and was having contractions. Not too bad most of the day, but noticeable enough. I fell asleep on the living room floor in the early afternoon because it was the most comfy place to be and only woke up during the contractions.
Finally went to the hospital around 4 or so when the contractions were about 5 minutes apart and stumped the nurses since I didn’t look that pregnant and apparently my contractions didn’t fall in the ‘normal’ range on the machine that measured them but since it seemed they were doing something and coming at regular intervals they didn’t bother with giving me anything to hurry them along. Got an epidural because it was starting to hurt in earnest now, they had to break my water because it wasn’t happening on its own (pricked with a pin no less, because mister was a little too high and they didn’t want his umbilical cord to try and slip out ahead of him in a gush of fluid). Listened to Christmas music on the radio and finally it came time to push and he was born at 1:59am on Christmas morning.
So all told, about 16 hours of labour. Not how I had planned that Christmas, but plans change. 
Seven hours. I dilated to eight centimeters in three hours, then got stuck there. Four hours later I had a c-section. If my daughter hadn’t been wedged in an awkward place, I might have had the whole labor and birth thing finished in four or five hours.
26.5 hours, 4pm - 6:30pm
I was having contractions 3 minutes apart for a few days before hand, I am just counting when they got strong enough that I couldn’t really think about anything else during them.
In that time I went from 2 cm dilated to 7 cm, and ended up with a c-section, so it probably would have been longer if I had had a vaginal delivery. I got pitocin somewhere in the middle of that, but it didn’t speed things up at all, just made everything hurt worse. I don’t really recommend it. My doctor was the one who wanted me to get a c-section, but I was pretty exhausted by the end of it, so whatever, I went with it.
My sister had a 7 hour labor with her first. I am super jealous of her, and I applaud anyone who went longer than 24 hours. It just gets pretty crazy at that point with not being able to sleep!
53 minutes for the first, 12 hours for the second.
My second child was transverse at 42 weeks so they induced me and the consultant turned her head down and held her that way for just under 2 hours until her head engaged to save me from having a c-section.
Tell the 53-minute story.
I was in labor from about four in the morning until 2:14 p.m. the next day. [fumbles with analog clock app]
So, about ten hours and change. First and only child. Exactly average birthweight and length.
I had to walk about a quarter mile to a pay phone, incidentally, to call a taxi. I don’t know if it made any difrference.
First time - Contractions started on the 28th. I went to the hospital when they were 5 minutes apart - about 2 or 3 am on the 29th. The contractions were no longer 5 minutes apart when I got to the hospital. I’m told to walk around for an hour and return. This happens a few times before I’m finally admitted. The contractions continue to get closer together and then further apart for the rest of the day and into the 30th. No dilation, really.I was stuck at 4 or 5 cm. Finally, on the 30th, the induction started. Didn’t make much of a difference, except it was more painful. Finally had a c-section and she was born just after 7 pm on the 30th- about 40 hours after i first got to the hospital and about 48 after I first noticed contractions.
Second time- elective c section scheduled for the 8th. I have no intention of going through that again, and my OB thinks a repeat is likely. I start having contractions early in the afternoon of the 31st. No big deal, I have an OB appointment at 6. The doctor tells me he doesn’t think I’m in labor, but advises me not to eat anything for the rest of the night anyway. By 8 am on the 1st, I’m on the way to the hospital, and he was born by c-section at 2:30 pm. Ended up with 24 hours of labor knowing that it would end in a c-section.
And that’s why I only have two kids.
Well…
I live on an island (2000 inhabitants no hospital), baby was due Christmas Eve so I went to the mainland on the 23rd, no ferries on 25th/26th and I didn’t fancy the lifeboat in full labour option, went to the hospital, cervix was not at all dilated. That was about 7pm.
They kept me in because I was having Braxton Hicks and checked my cervix again at 2 am, I was 1 cm and hooked me up to a monitor. At 3.45am I told a doctor the baby was coming, I’d been having strong contractions but not evenly spaced for a short while, I was 6 cm by then and 2 pushes at 4.20 I delivered. When I had my second child because of her complication they checked my birthing records and 53 minutes was the length of my first labour as recorded by the monitor.
Because of my quick delivery and my daughters transverse position I was taken into hospital 6 weeks before she was due with orders to lay on the floor and scream if I had so much as a twinge.
I have left out details to save my embarrassment…
…well ok since you had to know…
When my Christmas Eve baby was born he was a short fat 4kg and they had to cut me to get his big head out, OUCH!
Even worse, they put me in stirrups, stitched me up and left me there with the door open to the labour ward and I got to see all the staff and several new Dads walk past as I tried to unhook my naked self from the stirrups :mad:
The freaking Dr that stictched me up walked passed and waved a latex glove at me that he had blown up and written Merry Xmas on.
I still dream of him having to give birth to a large baby through his penis.
Now there’s something I’d never have thought I would share on a message board:smack:
:eek:
Okay fine, people. Going to buy my mom some flowers.
The first photo I have of me with my baby: in the foreground me looking adoringly at her WTF! expression. In the background, legs in stirrups and the doctors gloved and bloody hands busy with needle and thread.
Not one that I’ve framed.
7 hours, 4 hours (induced, felt much longer), 1 hour, 6 hours & then c-section.
My wife: From induction to finally a cesarean - 42 hours
The women in my family have a long history of needing their waters broken for them and the doctor for my first pregnancy utterly refused to believe that so he let me go for like four days. The contractions were strong and very, very uncomfortable (at times extremely painful even) but they weren’t terribly regular even when they were under five minutes apart.
I was young and didn’t know any better, but that guy was a dickbag.
I had a great doctor the second go round who knew my full history (the first delivery was botched in more ways than one so I was paranoid with the second) and was just fantastic. I went into the hospital on Monday to start cervidil, which was postponed to the next day because I started having contractions while the nurses were doing the one hour of monitoring the doctor required before giving me the med (I hadn’t had any pains at all that day, but was playing with my nipples the entire time I was lying there…). Waited and waited and my cervix wasn’t really moving (I think it got to 2 in several hours) so I asked the nurse to call the doctor for discharge instructions.
Woke up the next day with even stronger contractions but I had class (with a skill test) that I didn’t want to make up so I went. My instructor kicked me out but not before letting me perform the skill I needed to and lots of jokes about all the nurses around who could deliver if I needed them to. Fallout: New Vegas came out that day, too, so after class I picked Ben up and we went to a Game Stop in a town 20 miles from the hospital where my doctor was.
Like I said, the women in my family have a long, long history of needing help… I knew I was fine but everybody else was like “OMFG, SHE’S GOING TO DROP THAT BABY RIGHT HERE, EVERYBODY PANIC!”
Anyway, I wasn’t really “in labor” on the 18th. It really started while I was at class the next morning and even I worried a bit at Game Stop that I might not make it back to the hospital. Even so, New Vegas came out on 10/19 and he wasn’t born until the 20th.
I was induced at 6am. I gave birth at 2pm. I didn’t feel any contractions at all until noon. So, about 2 hours.
With our first, Pough-chan, my wife started induction at 8:00 am, then finally move forward enough 29 hours later to be taken into the delivery room for 7 1/2 hours of hard pushing with no epidural, as the hospital doesn’t “do” them. (Welcome to Japan.) At the end, I was getting ready to fight for a C-section but things moved along. So, 36 1/2 hours in total.
The second was an emergency C-section without labor.
The third was about 4 hours from start to delivery.