My labor with my first was 18 hrs, my second took 3 hrs 40 minutes, and my third took 1 hr 15 minutes.
My first two contractions with my 3rd were 3 minutes apart, and peaking after 30 seconds.. BUT, I couldnt talk through them straight off. I called my midwife, and because they were so short, she told me it would probably be a while. I kept timing them, and about 1/2 hr into labor, I had my DH get up out of bed, because I needed moral support. He started helping me with my breathing. The birthing pool was not at our house yet, midwife still had it. I asked him to go start filling the tub, and he did, and called the midwife back when I told him I was starting to feel pressure to push and had some significant bloody show. My midwife said she figured it was still too soon and that I must be wrong. So she is still at her house, and it gets to be about 6 am. I call my mom because I really really just cant deal with the contractions and I ask for prayer. At this point they are 1 minute long and 2 minutes apart. I hang up with her because I can feel another contraction coming, and it was a PUSHING contraction. I sat on the couch during that contraction and several things went thru my head... what happens if you push and its too soon, my midwife wasnt there so what should I do, etc. The contraction ended and I ran to the bathroom yelling "she's coming, she's coming" and scrambled into the bathtub. I said a quick prayer that I wouldnt tear badly and that baby and I would be okay, and sat down in the tub and the baby crowned! One more contraction, and she was out. My husband guided her out, and jokes that the force with which she expelled herself was so great that if his hands handt been there, she might have hit her head on the opposite end of the tub. She was like a rocket!
She was all tangled up in her cord, so DH had to turn her a few different ways to unloop her, and then he handed her to me. He turned the light off in the bathroom and turned the light on in the hallway, and then called the midwife. She was in her driveway getting ready to stop and get us bagels and stuff to settle in for what she was sure was going to be a much longer labor. She was shocked that I had given birth, and came over.
In retrospect, my midwife can't figure out why she got it in her head that I didnt know what I was talking about, she and I are good friends, and Ive never called her if I wasnt really truly in labor, but my "wildcard" labor turned out to be just that. With my contractions only being 30-45 seconds long, she interpreted that incorrectly.. its the intensity, not the duration, that you should be concerned about. She was thrilled that we got to have a UC, and was so glad it was us and not other couples in her practice who might have been really freaked out by it. She knew my DH is really level headed.
It was thrilling, and its a great story. But it did freak me out and I did need to process it afterward. Having a birth that is under 1 1/2 hrs tends to feel like youre on an express train.. fast, furious, superpainful, no time to recover between contractions, etc.
Also, in that labor, my placenta took 45 minutes to come out. My midwife said that its not uncommon for it to take longer than usual in the case of a precipitous birth.
Felicity weighed 9 lbs even, and was 20 1/2 inches long. I had a small tear where I always tear, worth about 2 stitches. And my recovery was a breeze.
(Now, after a 3 hr 40 minute labor with #2 and a 1 hr 15 minute labor with #3, you'd expect my 4th to have come out in 20 minutes right? Wrong. He took 5 hrs and 45 minutes, and I pushed for over an hour! Its no guarantee that they just get faster and faster.)