36 hours (ugh). Successful vaginal delivery in the end.
About 5 hours. I’d had a midwife appointment on Monday, at which point I was already dilated to 5cm (with no contractions - I think I had maybe one Braxton-Hicks during my whole pregnancy, and it had been weeks earlier). My blood pressure had been up for a couple of weeks, so we liked this sign - we wanted to get my BP down by delivering the baby! On Wednesday night, a little after 11pm, I had my first contraction, and it was enough to take my breath away. Second one was 15 minutes later, and I had to get out of bed and get moving. I had a couple of contractions that were 7 min apart, then a couple at 5min, then they went to 2-4 minutes apart. I woke my husband and called the midwife around 1am, went to the hospital around 2:30am, water broke around 3am, and he was born at 4:22am.
My mom has fast labors, too - she was in labor with me for only 4 hours, and my brother for 2. My midwives and I were pretty sure I’d be fast, which is fine with me!
My blood pressure started creeping up at 36 weeks, and after a week of bed rest it still hadn’t stabilized so I had an induction. Pitocin was started at 10:00pm on the 25th of June, got the epidural at about 3 AM after my water was broken by the doc, and by 2pm the next day I was ready to push. However 2 and a half hours of pushing later, the doctor had to admit that his head was just way too big to fit down and she recommended a cesarean.
He was born at 4:59 on the 26th, totally wedged into my pelvis with a big ole bruise on his head from where all the pushing was forcing his head into my hip bone.
Reading the operative notes I discovered out that even when they cut me open they found he was stuck and almost had to use forceps to get him out, but thankfully he popped out after a few minutes of maneuvering. Now I know what all the pulling and pushing was for. He was noted as having “very wide shoulders and a larger head.”
I’m hoping number two (someday) inherits my pin head.
Less than 1 hour.
I woke up at 3 to 3:15 am with light cramps and delivered at 4 am. I realized I was in labor at 3:45 just when we wanted to leave for the hospital. (I wanted to go to the hospital because I felt like something was wrong) So our son was born at home and we went to the hospital afterwards.
8 hours with the girl. Only about 4 of them were painful.
2 hours with the boy, from first contraction (felt like I’d been hit by a truck) to birth. Wasn’t sure we were going to make it to the hospital. On the plus side, they move REALLY fast when you turn up 9 cms dialated…
This is not a good thread to read when you are nearly 37 weeks pregnant and just a little bit scared about labor and delivery.
LOL - yeah, it sounds pretty harrowing, doesn’t it? But hang in there! Pretty soon you will have a story of your own! And you’ll be just fine. Look how many women managed to get through it in this thread alone - some who did it three, four and five times! My own daughters did it, too (and talk about harrowing! Just wait until your baby has a baby!). One daughter has 3 kids, one has twin boys, and they have their own stories.
Don’t worry, you’ll be just fine. Plus you’ll get a sweet baby out of it, which will make you not mind so much whatever you went through to get him/her here.
Pre-labor started at midnight - woke me out of a sound sleep with a distinct feeling of something odd going on, then again every half-hour to 45 minutes. Woke my husband at 6 with “this is definitely early labor”, gave in to his importuning to go to the hospital already at 11, checked in at 4 cm, first check by attending midwife at 2 pm, 6 cm, projectile water breaking, delivered at 3:30. Pushed for 10 minutes or so? 5 or 6 big pushes. So, depending on how you count, 5 to 15 hours.
And LavenderBlue, not to scare you or anything, but I was 37w4d. Compared to pregnancy, labor was a cakewalk. Plus, they give you drugs if you ask. Nothing to be scared of.
Read mine again, LB! (And, after 4000 months of nausea, random ceaseless aches and pains, hormonally-induced emotional meltdowns, and such, labor and delivery were easy as hell! Also, believe it or not, the minute that cute little baby is in your arms, all of it is totally worth it!)
Also, Ellen Cherry, if it makes you hate me less, I was sick every single day for 40 weeks and 4 days with the last one. And my oldest inherited his father’s gigantic head… :eek:
This is actually my second.
My first labor was amazing: four hours from start to finish after being induced, no epi, no c-section and no real pain. To this day I marvel that I got so lucky. My hope the second is as nice. The OB wants to induce in two weeks at 39 weeks because he feels my bp is too high and the risks will climb from there.
First one I was having mild contractions from about 6 PM, fixed dinner for Daddy but did not have any myself. Around 8 PM we were watching TV and he asked what I was writing. “Oh, just timing contractions. We’re at something like 10 minutes apart, 5 seconds each.” He flipped. OMG! What shall we do?? Well, remember the Lamaze classes?
Anyway, she waited through a basketball game and a hockey game, and the late show. I figured nothing much was going to happen after all so we got ready for bed, and then water broke. That was about 2 AM. We went to the hospital and she was born about 6 AM. So, 12 hours if you count from the first contraction, but only about 2 hours of really active labor. No meds at all. Work, but not really much actual pain.
Second was quicker. Mild contractions all afternoon, hospital early evening, born just before midnight. She was a bigger baby, so there was a little more of the ooh, that kind of hurts part, but again no meds, work but not serious pain.
After each one, having had no drugs, I felt absolutely fantastic, all energetic and hyped up with adrenaline. The first time I couldn’t sleep all the following day I was so pumped up.
My mom apparently had very quick labors also. My sister not so much, but then she had big babies and carried long. Mine were smaller and a little earlier than expected, but definitely not premature in development.
I had thought my daughter, who had my granddaughter 15 months ago, would deliver easily since her body type is similar to mine, she is in good physical shape, slender and flexible. Unfortunately she developed pre-eclampsia and they had to induce early after a two-day hospital stay, and that is never as easy. Also she did not do the Lamaze training, and I think (although I wasn’t present at the time) she tensed up at just the wrong time and made things harder on herself than they had to be. But everything turned out fine. Her case is one of those that I think accentuate the need for good prenatal and perinatal care. She would not have known about the pre-eclampsia without a doctor’s determining it, and both she and the baby could have died if it had not been handled appropriately.
It’s hard to say. Short answer: about 5 or 6 hours, depending on when you start counting.
Longer answer: I was having contractions when I woke up (around 8am) but they weren’t very bad - not even uncomfortable, really. I’d had a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions so I just assumed that’s what was going on, especially since I was only 36 wks along. I had an OB appointment around 10:30 am and I remember sitting in the doctor’s office having contractions and being a little uncomfortable. I think they were about 10 to 15 minutes apart or so (they never got regular so it’s hard to say exactly). The doctor said I was 3cm dilated (I’d been 1 cm the week before). At the end of the appointment, the OB introduced me to the other doctors who were on call, “just in case.” My husband and I left the appointment, drove 40 minutes home and promptly drove 40 minutes back to the hospital. When we got to the triage room, the nurse checked me (5cm dilated), paged my doctor about a zillion times, hooked me up to an IV, and wheeled me back to a delivery room. (I was 7 cm by the time I got there - I think it was around 2 pm at that point). I got my epidural shortly after that and, about an hour later, I was at 10 cm. Pushed for about 15 minutes and had my little girl at 4:36pm.
First one- sort of in labour for about eighteen hours, induced after my waters broke. Nothing happened, I got to 2 cm dilated, epidural and then emergency c-section.
Second one- blood pressure skyrocketed five or six weeks before I was due, put on quasi-bedrest. I drank quarts of raspberry leaf tea and performed weird incantations in hopes of have a VBAC (okay, I really drank the tea) but got a really dangerous blood pressure spike on my due date, went into hospital with my midwife, and had a less-emergency c-section.
The third pregnancy/delivery will probably be similar. Nausea all the way through, blood pressure problems, bedrest, planned c-section. Both of my kids were born about midnight. If I have to have a planned section this time I’m scheduling it for noon so I’m not awake in the middle of the night with monitors beeping at me!
No, I’m not currently pregnant but we’re hoping to have a third, at least.
First, I woke at 10 am with my water breaking. Irregular contractions throughout the day. Started being painful at 6 pm, she was born at 3:40 in the morning.
Second, I had painless contractions every 10 minutes from 10 pm to 10 am. Then more frequent and painful. She was born at 11:40 pm.
DH’s comment: I’m glad she was born before midnight. Who would want to be born on the 13th?
My response: Do you not REMEMBER your other daughter’s birthdate?!? (yes, it’s the 13th).
First child, about 16 hours total. The doctor broke my water about 10 hours in to help move things along.
Second child, 5 hours, but I hated that doctor. He used the grease gun suction thing, because I’d specifically asked him to not use the salad tongs and stuff but all he heard was salad tongs. He also had me lying in a very uncomfortable position, with nothing to hold onto as I pushed, and he had my husband pushing on my stomach…it was strange. ( I would have used the same doctor as the first except that we’d changed insurance, and my husband was no longer comfortable with the idea of needing to drive to a hospital 90 minutes away)
As with several of these stories, it varies a bit depending on how you define it.
With the first, I had the first contraction as we passed the bank clock on the way home from dinner with my parents - 10:20 pm. They kept up all night, anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes apart, while I sat up playing cards and trying to keep myself occupied. Husband slept. I probably would have, if I’d been asleep when they started, but they were just enough to keep me from falling asleep. The next day they got more regular but not too much harder and finally when they were steadily about 5 minutes apart we headed out. Got to the hospital at 3:00 pm, went through all the stupid ‘prep’ stuff, and when the nurse checked I was about 4 cm. She came back about 20 minutes later, saying she’d had a hunch, and I was about 8 cm. It was pretty much all go from there, and he was born at 6:15. So, about 20 hours if you want to get technical, but only about 4 that really counted.
With the second, I woke up sometime after midnight and took a shower. About 1 or 1:30 we called my mom so by the time she got there and we got to the hospital it was about 3:00 am. Lots of sitting around in the darkened room, waiting for contractions to get regular (they were anywhere from 2 1/2 to 5 minutes apart), dozing in between. I guess it was maybe 6:00 or so when things got serious and she was born at 9:33. It would have been sooner if she hadn’t gotten her silly head wedged in to one side. Lots of poking around with forceps or something, much more cutting than I wanted, and finally the nurse put her hands on my side and shoved. After that it was all easy. Well, except for repairs. Which took about 45 minutes. So, 6 or 7 hours altogether, with at least half of it mostly boring.
Third time, I had the first contraction about 8:30 am. My husband came home from work, and my mom came and got the other two kids. Then we waited. Did some errands, and things got going. Came home to get ready to go and things stopped. Messed around like that all day. (She’s still the world’s most indecisive girl.) Contractions finally acted like they meant it about 7:00 pm, we got to the hospital at 8:00 and she was born at 8:26.
I was sitting in admitting, in a wheelchair, suitcase by my feet, and there was another couple there ahead of us. That woman looked at me, asked if I was in labor, and when I said I was she asked how far apart my contractions were. I told her about 2 minutes, and she practically yelled, “And they’re making you sit here?!” Then she told the admissions people to let me go before her. I thought it was quite nice of her.
Here’s a cool story from a friend of mine, who was in labor almost three days, but everything went fine, and she had her baby at home, with her deployed husband watching via webcam.
10 hrs with the first. 5 with the second…no more…done…that’s all she wrote…el fin.
39 hours with my daughter in 2009 (first contractions 2.30pm Friday, she was born 5.30am Sunday). My mother also had really long labours, 3 kids each well over 24 hours. But while we do them long, they are relatively easy - she and I did them all without any pain relief (towards the end would have been open to an epidural but I was at home and got to the hospital just in time to push).
About 15 hours with the first, 17 hours with the second.
My mother could have babies like nobody’s business. Short labors and easy delivery. She had her fifth child (my sister) in about 20 minutes.