How did your labor start?

[chocolala]

i woke up on the morning of my due date (well, i believe it was my due date according to my charts, my scan put me 5 days ahead, which wasn't physically possible!) with slight cramping. i went to the loo and had a bit of a bloody show. i was getting tightenings all day. i had my last midwife appointment that afternoon and was due to have a sweep. i had tightenings while she was checking the position of the baby, but failed to do the sweep as she couldn't reach my cervix. lily was still only 2/5ths engaged. she reckoned i was probably in early labour.

we also had a small argument with the midwife as she was talking about induction for a week later, i was planning on refusing being induced at that point and wanted monitoring instead. i was given the usual stuff of putting my baby's life at risk, this was bollocks though as they had my dates wrong!

anyway, we then went into town to get some clary sage to help speed things along

that evening while walking the dog with the husband, i noticed i was getting tightenings every half hour or so. got home and realised they were actually every 15 mins. they soon got stronger and went to about every 7 mins.

i spent the next few days with fairly strong contractions between every 7 - 4 mins. we were planning a home birth but had to go into hosp for monitoring early one morning as lily wasn't moving much after contractions. all was fine so we went home for 24 hours.

the next morning contractions were every 3 mins, no midwives were able to come out to me, so my husbands aunt drove us back to hospital. scared the life out of her though as the journey takes about an hour and during that time my contractions went down to every 2 mins

lily was born about 20 hours later on nothing more than gas and air, which i only used after my waters were broken.

all in all i was in labour about 4 days, it may not have been active labour the whole time, but the contractions were just as strong at the beginning as the were when i was 8cm!

i should add, that lily was back to back and not fully engaged when i went into labour, which is why i believe it took so long.

sorry this is so long, but it went on a long time

 

[Gbobs]

My waters broke when I was drifting off to sleep at bang on 36 weeks. I had no obvious symptoms prior to this. Contractions started about an hour later when I got to hospital and it was then we found out he was breech so only a couple of hours of contracting for me until we went into theatre for a section.....never really felt like I had a labour

 

[Audraia]

I had no signs of labor, no BH, no contractions nothing. At 40 +2 I was on my way to the hospital for my non stress test and doc appointment. After registering in the elevator up to the NST my water broke, and it wasn't a lot, just enough that I knew it wasn't normal. When I got up to the OB ward I told them I think my water broke, they did the test and told me yup, it had broke so I was staying! I was lucky to already be there! But they had to start pitocin cause my contractions didn't really start well on their own. I had a perfect labor/birth, and was very glad I wasn't at work cause I only had the day off since I had my doc appt. I was scheduled to work the next day haha and I worked the day before!

 

[MumToEva]

Waters broke unexpectly at 37+2, but proper contractions didn't kick in for a further 14 hours. Baby Eva was born 5 hours later.

 

[littlenic]

At 40+6 I'd had mild bh all day and finally finished packing my hospital bag (psychological trigger I'm sure!). Ate dinner at 7pm (spicy rice), had one pain at table, walked into living room and had another pain. Started to put 2+2 together and with the third pain my waters popped on the sofa. Waddled upstairs with a towel between my legs and found that I had meconium in my waters. I started timing contractions and they were coming every 2 minutes and lasting for a minute from the word go.
Had to go straight to the labour ward for monitoring (boo!) and when they checked me about half hour after labour had started, I was 2/3cm. I laboured in the bath and tried a bit of gas and air for the next 7 hours before being told I'd only progressed to 3cm. I thought 'I'm not buggering around like this all night' so asked for an epi and 12 hours later delivered my boy after pushing for 30 mins. It wasn't what I expected or planned but it went well.

 

[embojet]

On the Sunday evening I had light period type cramps, then went on to have regular contractions all night, and no contractions all day for the next 3 days! I went in to hospital on the Tuesday night and was 3cm so sent home. Woke up on the Wed night just before midnight with a sudden ureg to push after all day with no contractions. Went to hospital and I was 10cm!

 

[Belle25]

First baby-contractions
Second baby-Waters went whilst I was in bed never seen OH jumpout of bed so fast

xx

 

[Emma&Freya]

I DTD on the Friday, went for a curry on the Saturday and had pains early hours on Sunday, they stopped at 11 am. Sunday night I went home to a letter of the landlord saying I owed him more money than usual, and at 4.30 am I had pains and they were pretty full on!

They were every 20/ 30 mins til 7am then they came at every 5 mins x

 

[hellohefalump]

With my daughter, my waters broke and then the contractions started pretty soon after. They were very painful right from the beginning. I was in labour 8 hours.

With my son, my waters broke but nothing happened for a good 12 hours later, when my contractions started. From the time the contractions started he took eight hours aswell but he was back to back.

 

[lovelylaura]

Was in early labour for 6 days woke up the day before my due date really needing a poo and nothing was happing I was also having pains but because I have ibs it just felt like that wasn't untill I had been up a few hours oh had come from work and I was laying on the sofa moaning with each pain that things were getting further on , oh woke up because he could hear me in pain I spent the rest of the day saying to him noooo I don't need to go to hospital they will only tell me to go home finally went in at 5 and had her at 12 a lady sawme come in and took me straight into my birthing room without and questions asked she knew it was happening lol good luck such an exciting time xx

 

[Moti]

I was scheduled to be induced at 37 weeks. At 35 + 5 I was at the doctor for a routine visit, ultrasound and non-stress test. The doctor checked me - I was 2-3 cm dilated. He sent me to the hospital and by the time I got there I was 5 cm.

Honestly, I never had really any pain or strong contractions with this delivery. Had I been at home I don't think I would have know I was in labor until the very end. It was a good thing I had an appointment that day!!

Wishing you the best....

 

[Meredith2010]

I woke up at about 10am (it was a Sunday!) on the day I was 40+6, and must have had my show at some point overnight as I found it when I woke up. I wasn't having any contractions or anything so I had a bath, made hubby breakfast in bed then pottered around the house for a while. I wasn't having contractions but I just felt a bit funny and kind of realised it was going to be that day.

Contractions then started at about midday and immediately they were every 3 to 4 minutes apart lasting about a minute, so we went to hospital and got there at around 2pm. I wasn't examined until 3pm, and was only 2cms dilated so they tried to send me home (I refused). The contractions continued being every couple of minutes apart and were extremely intense, but by 6pm I was still only just 4cm but thankfully that meant I could finally get some pain relief (it had all been refused until that point, even gas and air).

55 minutes later they were setting up for the epidural and realised that baby was on his way out - I went from 4cm to fully dilated in under an hour. 12 minutes of pushing later
he appeared!

I had absolutely no signs of early labour prior to the day I gave birth, even though I was nearly a week overdue. Apparently I was having braxton hicks (during a check up around my due date a midwife could feel them) but I never felt them.

 

[missbabypo]

With both I had back pain really bad, achy down to my bum. Later in the day I felt (and I am sure heard) a pop, went to the toilet and my waters had broken. With Lou it was an almighty contraction that made my waters break, so strong it made me cry. They were so bad I threw the phone at Ollie's head when I was supposed to be talking to the hospital

 

[Lyo28]

I had a few false starts where I wondered if I could be. But honestly when the first real contraction hit I knew it. Also the consistancy of the contractions gave it away! I got my first one on dec 23 at 22.00 and he was born christmas morning at 03.30.

They started off about 20 mins apart and got to 5 mins apart by midday christmas eve.