If you had a singleton before twins, was your labor longer with twins?

[DWife03]

I realize childbirth is different for every woman and every birth because so many variables play a part in it. But for those of you had singletons before your twins, was your twin labor longer? I had a very short labor with my first baby - a homebirth singleton, and everyone keeps telling me to be prepared to have at least one of the twins in the car on the way to the hospital because we have a 90 min drive. But I am wondering if an overstretched uterus may take longer in general? Not to mention if Twin A is not in an ideal position, etc.

[LoisLane]

My labor with my first born (singleton) was about 20 hours, with three hours of pushing in every position known to womankind (he was sunnyside up with a head in the 98th percentile).

For my girls, I was in "real" labor (had been having ctxns on and offs for several weeks) for about 8 hours, and 28 minutes of pushing before twin A came (with her wonderfully average sized head).

[turnquia]

1:  Singleton... 2.5 hours (1 hour pushing) 7lbs 7oz

2:  Singleton.... 9 hours (20 min pushing)  7lbs 6 oz

3:  TwinA less than 1 hour (pushing 15 min) 7lbs 12 oz

4:  Twin B 20 min after twin A  (Pushing 5 min) 7lbs 4oz. 

[4Marmalade]

Ds1 was about 12 hours with 2 hours pushing

Dd1 was about 10 hours and only 2 pushes

Ds2 and dd2 (twins) were my quickest labour.  My water broke at midnight and ds2 arrived almost 5 hours later.  Dd2 followed 30 minutes after ds.

[star8kitten]

I am really interested in this as well.  I am preggo with twins this time around and my previous labor were not that long.  First was 10 hours and second was five hours.  Sometimes it is so hard to wrap my head around how this labor will go!

[RSG]

My first labor was about 13 hours from very start to finish - with about three hours of pushing.  My son was sunnyside up too!  The twins were about 6 hours in total, with about 30 minutes of pushing for baby A; and 5-10 minutes of rest, then 10 minutes of pushing for baby B - also a sunnyside up.

[MamaRabbit]

DD was 4.5 hr with 25 minutes of pushing.

DS was 2.5 hr with 3 or 4 pushes.

Twins were 5.5 hours with 2 pushes for the first and none for the second... they just slid out!  6lb8oz and 6lb14oz.  I really did not have the urge to push for at least an hour of full dilation but I figured that I'd wait, and once I reached in and felt the top of the baby's head, I knew she was far enough down to push.

[rachel65655]

Baby 1 - 8 hours labor 45 min pushing

baby 2 - 3 hours labor 1 push

baby 3 - induced then 6 hours labor 1 push

baby 4 - same as baby 3

baby 5 - natural labor 7 hours - 1 push

twins 6&7 - natural 8 hour labor 1 push for each.

[Ellie'sMom]

Singleton: 12 hours of active labor with 2 awful hours of pushing.

Twins: About 3 hours of active labor. 20-30 minutes at most of pushing for baby A and 2 pushes for baby B. 

When people ooh and ahh about my twin birth, I always tell them it was so much easier than my first! And my twins outweighed my singleton by 1 and 1.5 lbs.  

[NaturalBirthGoddes]

Baby 1 - 11 hours, 8.7 lbs
Baby 2 - 8 hours, 7.7 lbs
Baby 3 - 7 hours, 9.2 lbs
Twins - 6 hours, 7.3 lbs and 6.9 lbs