Labor patterns.

[MammaB21]

After recently having my second baby, I'm curious about my labor patterns. I always here labor described as either long or fast, but it seems I have both all in one.

My first labor was induced at 39+4 with prostoglandin gel. That labor was 22 hours of pretty manageable contractions. In that 22 hours I dilated from 1 to 6cm. I was in the hospital with midwives and they determined my labor to be stalled out at 6cm so I got one more dose of the gel. Transition hit and I went from 6cm to baby in arms in 45 minutes. It was crazy intense.

My second labor was a homebirth (spontaneous labor) at 39+5. Again I had about 22 hours of very manageable contractions. They were 20-30 minutes apart for most of that time. Intense but manageable. I treated that day like any other. The only difference was that I had to stop every 20 minutes to breath through a contraction. After about 18 hours of that my water sprung a tiny leak and I had some bloody show. Contractions then became 10 minutes apart, but I was still in early labor.......thinking we could have a long way to go. Two hours later transition hit which is when I really knew it was the real deal. I struggled through that for about an hour. Contractions turned 'pushy' which lasted about a half hour and then I really pushed for about 10 minutes and had me a baby. So again, about 22 hours of easy peasy early labor and then 2 hours of intense stuff until baby was in my arms.

I always thought that my first labor went the way it did because it was artificially induced. But after my second, I now see that it's just my bodies way of laboring. I'm curious if anyone else labors this way? And if you do, how do you classify your labors? Would you say that you are a long laborer or a fast laborer? I guess a better question is (and this is regardless of your labor pattern) do you count the start of labor at the first contraction or at the start of active labor?

[GoBecGo]

I am reading your bold question (should tht be bolded) two ways Do I? or Does one? And because i am chatty mcchat, i will answer both.

"They" usually count labour as active labour only. And that is often guessed at. I think it's arbitrary but labour varies so much there has to be SOME universal language for discussing it amongst medical professionals. I do think that a good midwife will know how "close" you are regardless of what your cervix is doing.

As for me...my first active labour was counted as 1hr 24mins to psuhing and 5mins of pushing, because that was the time the MW's spent with me before DD had crowned and the time from her crowning to her being born, but i KNOW i wanted to push that whole time, and she crowned after over 2 hours of me NOT pushing, yet i was given a VE and found to be 2-3cm and 50% effaced 4 hours before her birth - honestly, i am pretty positive i went from 3-10 and descended in one contraction because in that contraction she rotated OP to OA and dropped so fast and so low my perineum was bulging and i pooped!.

I personally count my labour from when it begins to feel like work, and i can do nothing but labour anymore. For me that makes my first labour about 3 hours and my second about one hour. Midwives wrote #1 up as 1hr30mins and #2 as 61mins. Does that help?

[chellebee]

I was just thinking about this!

My first was also induced and it was 30 hours of pit. It felt both fast and slow, like you described, though with pit, I was contracting ever 2-3 minutes from the get go. Even so, I would describe the contractions as quite manageable. All the sudden the tables turned and the last 6 hours were crazy intense. It only took so long because he was in a bad position.

Baby 2 was born at home. I had contractions every 7 minutes or so for a good 12 hours. I went about my day this whole time. Suddenly I was in very active labor and had baby in arms 2 hours later.

When people ask how long my labor was, I usually say first contraction to baby out was 14 hours, but the part where I really worked was only 2. Or something to that effect.

[happysmileylady]

I have the same thing with transition. Both of my previous labors, I hit about 8cm and transition and then boom, baby. I go from 8 to 10 like that and then I am pushing, both times baby was out in like 3 to 5 pushes.

Both times though, that 8 cm transition wall is when I cave on meds. I am hoping to avoid that this time around, knowing what I know. And I would not call the long labor time leading up to that easy peasy.

With my first, I had been having BH for weeks, and the night they became for real, the first one was at like 11:30pm. I tried to keep sleeping, thinking they were more BH, just a little more intense. It wasn't until about 4am that they were becoming difficult to sleep through, so I started timing and they were already 10 minutes apart by that point. At 5, I woke up my mom (I was 17 and living at home, single) At 6ish, I went to the hospital, I was like 4 or 5 cm at that point. And by this point I was for sure in pain. (I later found out they had started me on some pitocin) The pain just continued to get worse until I hit that 8cm point, they told me it was really my last chance for some pain meds, I got some nubain at that point...and then I was pushing.

With the second, my real contractions started on a Wednesday morning. I had just had a dr appointment on that Monday at which I had been checked and was fully closed. The contractions were off and on all day, at points getting as close as 10 to 15 minutes apart, but then they would just stop. We finally went into L & D that night, I was only JUST starting to dialate and the contractions were NOT regular, so I went home. They actually stopped for the most part overnight, but I woke up to them the next day...and more of the same starting and stopping. And they really did hurt quite a bit. They were really wearing me out, I had started bleeding a little, mucus plug came out that day. But again, just as they would get to like 10 minutes apart, they would stop. This time though they kept up overnight. And by 5am Friday morning, they were 5 minutes apart and had been steadily getting a litle closer together overnight. But when I got to the hospital I was only at 1cm. And then, the back labor started, it felt like someone was stabbing me in the spine. I got some nubain at that point, just to sleep, but even after 5 or so hours, pain in my back breaking through the nubain, I was still only at three. I was trying to breath through it all, trying to maintain control, but it really hurt, particularly in my back and I just couldn't manage it all. And I had NO pit this time either. And when I hit that 8cm point, at like 5pm Friday evening, I ended up, at the urging of DH (not the hospital staff) with the epidural... and withing about 20 minutes of getting it, I was pushing and she was out in like 3 pushes.

I personally count labor as starting from the first "different" contrax...The first non BH ones. And they do really feel different to me.

Having said that, I started having non BH contrax yesterday, but they are literally ALL OVER the place I haven't had one for about 3 hours now, none overnight either. And I have no other labor signs-no bleeding, mucus plug still intact etc.

Having a baby is a pain...like the ACTUAL HAVING of the baby.:

[nadia105]

I've always counted the length of my labors from when I knew it was 'it'. I seem to go into a pattern of ctxns every 5 minutes very quickly, so I have very little ealry labor and more active labor from the get go.

[MyFullHouse]

My labors have been different as far as dilating to 6 or 7. Both of my boys took around 15 hours of active labor to get there. My girls took about 7 hours.

With all four, once I hit 6 or 7 centimeters, I had a baby about 30 minutes later.

I'm having another boy. I hope he follows my gender pattern if we have a snow storm when I go into labor. I hope he doesn't if we don't!

[Peony]

DD1 was the only one that I had VE exams during labor with so I have no idea about dilation for my next two pgs. With my first two births, I woke up with contractions 7 minutes apart. For DD1 it stayed like that all day, after 12 hours the MW convinced me to come in for a VE, I was 4 cms, she sent me out to dinner and to come back when contractions were 3-4 minutes apart. I came back had an hour on intense labor, pushed for an hour, so it was an 29 hour labor, the last 3 hours of it was the most work. With DD2, my contractions stayed at 7 minutes for 7.5 hours then a had a couple intense contractions, hopped in the pool, had a couple more and she was born. Now with DS, it started off the same, woke up with contractions 7 minutes apart yet again. But they got intense really quickly and started going increasing and decreasing, 3m to 6m to 7m, to 3, and back again. He was posterior so that maybe why, had a couple of back to back contractions and started pushing. He was a 4 hour labor.

I think I do something similar like I labor and labor and then go from like 5-10 in 2 contractions every time.