So, so much easier for me second time round. My first was a 26 hour labour, more than 4 hours pushing and a resultant forceps delivery.

Second time round it was 3 hours from first contraction to birth. Rowan was nearly born on the dining room floor... was only rushed to hospital through my insistence! No pain relief either.

your first labour sounds very much like mine. i had a wonderful first pregnancy, but a 22.5 hour labour with contractions every 3 minutes from the start as soon as my waters broke. i didn't get into established labour until 16.5 hours later, when i begged for pain relief. i pushed for 2 hours before bella came out.

my 2nd pregnancy was horrible. i was sick constantly, up until the morning i gave birth. my contractions started at 7am, i felt it was important to keep active, put on my TENS machine, & oh, bella & i went to the trafford centre for a bit. at about 11.30am, my contractions were hurting a lot, so we grabbed a quick lunch & headed home. the midwife came to see me & i was 4-5cm dilated at 2pm. we went to the hospital, i had some g&a, got into the birthing pool at 3.25pm, my waters broke & lauren was born at 3.35pm. it was amazing.

xx

My pregnancy was worse generally second time round but i'd say the labour was easier.

With Daniel i has morning sickness from about 6-16 weeks - it was just nausea but lasted all day. Although i didn't put on a really huge amount of weight i did get huge to the extent that everyone thought i was definitely having twins but it'd been missed!! I had a little heartburn later on in the pregnancy.
Labour wise: i had overnight contractions on the Mon, Tues, Wed and Thurs night which were lasting about 1min and were about 5 min apart. These kept me awake pretty much all night. On the Wed i went into hospital to be induced but they refused to do it on the grounds that i was already presenting labour symptoms. On the Thurs evening at about 6pm i went into labour properly (as in it didn't stop in the morning!!). At 9pm i went to the labour ward and was given gas and air. At 2am they broke my waters but i still wasn't progressing very far. At about 4am they finally gave me the drip to induce me. By 7am i said i wanted to push but i was still only 9cm dilated but as i had been at 9cm for about 2 hours they said i could push (looking back i wasn't at all ready to push but as i'd never done it before i thought i was). After 1 1/2 hours of pushing i wasn't getting anywhere so i had a c-section. I amidst of the above twice they nearly had me down for a section under a general because babies heartbeat dropped right off the chart. I would say it was a pretty awful labour tbh.

With Esther the pregnancy was worse. I had morning sickness from 3 days after we'd had the sex that conceived the baby (no it wasn't wishful thinking sickness as i didn't expect to get pregnant our first time of trying because it too a long time with Daniel) and it lasted until i was 24 weeks - again it was nausea only but it lasted all day. From 24-26 weeks i felt amazing and then from 26 weeks onwards i was totally worn out. I had heartburn from about 20 weeks and drank gaviscon like water for the next 40 weeks!!! I wasn't anywhere near as big as with Daniel so that was a positive lol.
Labour wise i lost my plug on the Sat am - spent 3 hours doing some major gardening which gave me some contractions. Then i rested for the rest of the day!! Went to bed at 11pm and started with contractions straight away. These were every 20min and lasting 1min for 1-2hours, then every 10 and lasting 1 for the next 1-2hours, then every 5min lasting 1min for the next hour. at 3am i was doing the washing up (OH came down to see what i was doing and i said 'i'm doing the washing up, i'm having contractions every 5-10 min but don't worry about it - go back to bed' and he did lol). By 5.30am i decided that i was fed up of being at home and it was a reasonable time to wake Daniel up so i phoned the hospital to go in. By the time i got to the hospital at 7.30am the contractions had stopped!!! They tried to send me home at 10am but i refused. Had a very hot bath and by midday they had started in a big way again. I started on the gas and air about midday. I had it taken away from me for 1 1/2 hours at something like 2pm. At 4pm i wanted to push and at 4.50pm Esther was born.
I would say that although it felt like i was in labour for a long time i wasn't really. I only needed pain relief for 5 hours of it. So to me it was a much much easier labour.



Just wanted to say that quite often if you've had heartburn during your first pregnancy then you get it earlier in your second. Also braxton hicks are worse second time round because your body is more used to being pregnant. Both of those things being worse second time around are in no way an indication that your labour is going to be worse.

I have been really lucky so far. 1st time round i have an easy-ish 9hr 23min labour with just G&A and 2nd time round i had an easy 4hr 27min labour with just G&A. I do feel my second was better because 1) i got to have a home birth 2) i was allowed to walk around etc rather than lay on a bed and 3) i knew what was coming. x

Labour is much more intense the 2nd time round. Was so much faster for me though!

SPD is Symphisis Pubis Disfunction. The pregnancy hormone affects the ligaments which hold the pelvis together and stead and make those ligaments quite slack which results in the pelvis moving around more than it should causing alot of pain. It varies in severity from woman to woman.
I used to get pain in my left hip and around my lower back as well pain around the front of my pelvis when I walked. The bigger I got, the worse it got so by the time I went into labour at 38 weeks I was in agony 24/7 The front of my pelvis had slipped down a teeny bit.. not much but enough to cause problems with Evie's head being born and of course her shoulders. I was in agony for about 3 weeks after and still get problems with my left hip now

Ooops sorry for the essay there!

Yikes mynx that sounds horrible and oh so painful! I ended up googling it too. I can't imagine having to go through that in pregancy.