Contraction Timeline

[BlessedJess]

There are some really cool apps out there that let you time your contractions while in labor. I had one on my iPad that I had running while I was in labor. Which was really neat because I was able to (almost) exactly report the whole timeline up to a half hour or so after the baby came and show you all what has been going on with me for a long time with a number of babies. Natural labor and the contractions women get can be all over the place. Mine surely were. They weren't even of a consistent intensity. Only a third were really intense. Maybe 20 minutes or so of active labor. (granted, this was a breech birth at 36 weeks - but this is nothing new to me, even though this was my first breech.)

I started timing my contractions early in the day before active labor began - here's the timeline:


11:32 am then -
19 mins apart
12
3
19
14
29
26
30
30
24
35
38
30
13
25
17
6
5
22
11
12
5
14
20
21
17
12
11
5
12
9
7
9
6
8
6
6
4
6
10
2
1
and that's when we quit timing with contractions on top of one another and my body shifting into pushing... and 15 minutes later we welcome Mike into the world, at 11:05 at night.

How many of you had a regular "active phase" of labor with contractions staying under 5 minutes? Because I've read its best to wait until active labor to show up at the hospital. There's no way I could ever make it to the hospital in this case. Maybe after the contractions were 6,6, and 4? Hard to say because that 10 minute break could have turned me back into the house. Besides, we live over a half hour away from the closest (crappy) hospital. About an hour from a really decent hospital that I would actually consider using if needed and there were no anticipated problems with the baby. We'd have to travel over 4 hours to the best hospital cluster where most everybody lives in the state and where there are NICUs.

This is why you will never see UC become illegal. People like me wouldn't even know when to show up. You've got to let an involuntary bodily function be legal because there will always be people who can't do that function in one particular place, due to unpredictable timing.

[prescottchels]

Wow! That's a really cool record to have/share 

From all the stories I've heard I never would have guessed contractions could/would be so erratic...

[BlessedJess]

Originally Posted by prescottchels 

Wow! That's a really cool record to have/share 

From all the stories I've heard I never would have guessed contractions could/would be so erratic...

I know, its weird. Last night I joked with my husband, what if we were aliens? I mean, totally kidding but sometimes I am boggled by how different our physiology can be. And really, this isn't just me. A lot of women are this way or have other unusual things about them. Another weird thing about me is that I always have skinny babies who plump up at lightning speed as soon as the milk comes in or - like last time - even before my milk was in my baby started getting busy growing. (good thing, too because he was 3.5 pounds at the start) Everybody is different but hospitals only deal in averages. I would tell other moms, always remember that. Even though births with healthy women are very often safe, they are also often enough very different and safe.

Regardless, I would have a hard time deciding when to go to the hospital. I also have very reactive contractions. So I might get in the car, go all the way to town, turn in - park, and realize that I haven't had contractions for an hour, turn around... go home and suddenly I'm in transition. I've never actually done this, because I always birth at home, but I know my body stops contracting on a dime when I'm not in the right mood for labor. I can't be stressed at all or I can stall for over a half hour.

And yet I'm very healthy. I've always had very good birth outcomes even when I had premature rupture of membranes or early birth. That last baby was 36 weeks but was fully mature and was birthed easily. Now he's two months and weighs 9 pounds. I had a friend of mine some time ago give birth to a baby girl of 10 pounds at 46 weeks. Her gestation time was 10 weeks longer than mine. (her baby was a late developer and still had an immature bronchial tube when she was born.)  Women and their babies are just all over the map. Even healthy women with healthy, normal babies.

[prescottchels]

Yup. There is definitely a high degree of variations of normal, even in just one woman...

[Voondrop]

I used a timing contraction thing for our last baby, it was fun & lightened the mood. I would yell "Start!" & he'd switch tabs & keep reporting back on the specifics until it got too late & I decided to go to bed while I could. Baby came next day no matter the record.