Don't get me wrong, the sooner the better. But I'm 39+5 and had a sweep yesterday and the consultant said I'm already 2cms dilated and I had a show and only stopped bleeding this morning.

He booked me in for induction on Thursday anyway, but said he thinks the baby will be born pretty sharpish.

Since then, not a lot. I feel a little weird down there from the sweep and hav had a few cramps but nothing else... so how long does it take to get going?

Also, the labour ward is packed at the moment and this means that I probably won't get to use the 1 pool, and will only be allowed 1 birthing partner as they don't allow two if it's busy.

I've been so calm yet excited about giving birth, but now I'm getting a bit worried, and also wanting to know how long it's going to be.

Obviously, it's first baby so I'm crap and don't know anything.

advice - gas and air is brill IME

listen to your body - squat, kneel, do whatever you need to

i kept as active as i could and that helped

try to rest now (!), eat and drink and look forward to meeting your baby

My labour started with a few cramps around 12.30 (lunch time) and by 6.50pm she'd arrived. And that was my first too. Other people have much longer labour though, so no rule of thumb that I know of. And labour can stop and start to begin with.
Once you get to five mins between contractions (ie big cramps!), that's the time to call the labour ward and to go in. But don't wait until they are regularly five mins apart. We got to the point when the contractions were sometimes 2 mins apart, sometimes 6 mins, and my dh was saying 'we can't go yet, they're not always five minutes apart'. I gave birth within an hour and a half of arriving at hospital......

Good luck!

The latent stage of labour can last for ages, so I second the advice to get as much rest as possible (not easy, I know!).

So ya think I'm in the latent phase then? Or just getting my hopes up?

Do you think the labour ward will still be good if they've got loads in?

ruby- i fully intend on hitting the gas and air. But it's not really even hurting much at mo.

If you're 2cm dilated then you must be in early labour - otherwise your cervix wouldn't be dilated. It can take ages to get to the really active stage though. I wouldn't worry about the hospital, things can change pretty quickly - it might be really quiet today.

Unless you're there already.