What did you do when you were in labour?

[CharliesMummyMeg]

I went into labour at 9.30pm while i was in bed reading a mag, i had full back labour no pain in my tummy, I was so tired i just wanted to sleep. My only regret when i was in labour was that i for some reason didnt go downstairs. I shouted down the stairs to my fella that i was in labour and ended up staying upstairs making trips to the bathroom for baths and use of toilet but didnt actually go down stairs until i went to hospital at about half 1.
I wish i went downstairs and did more instead of just try to sleep, and i wish i held out longer at home but i didnt have a very supportive other half and felt i needed to go to hospital so i was in the right place with support.

I feel really bad because i pictured myself going downstairs and saying "im in labour!" and i pictured pottering around the house but instead i stayed upstairs lay in bed and pottering around the bloody bedroom. I kept trying to sleep which made my labour longer because of lack of movment, i know im being silly because i did really well. Do you have any regrets when you went into labour? did you picture you doing something other than what you did? How long did you last at home? Was your partner supportive?

With ds1 I had a 28 hour labour with contractions starting every 7 minutes, reducing to every 2 minutes within 5 hours. Had a trip to the hospital, was sent home to have a bath then spent the 3 hours vomiting violently. I spent the next 23 hours crushing dh's hand. He had to do anything he needed to in less than 2 minutes, returning in time for the next handcrushing. He was wonderful - in fact the midwife asked him if he had considered retraining as a mw.

How had I envisaged labour? Well the books said walk around, watch a dvd, do some ironing etc, so that was what I was going to do. None of them that I remember mentioned vomiting, nor feeling as if you had been run over by a truck.

With ds2 I spent a few hours doing housework, wondering if I was in labour and deciding whether to phone mil or not. Eventually I called, she arrived and I spent the next 30 minutes giving her instructions on how to feed the cat and ds1/what to do with the ansaphone/how the TV remote worked . . . with dh and mil growing increasingly anxious. We made it to the hospital - just!

cried alot
slept
walked about
read
watched tv
cried alot
sat on the loo wondering whether I could just walk out on all this now...

speedy first labour:
immediately went to hospital had pethidine & G&A, went to sleep and woke up for transition a few hours later - it was all pretty made for TV-like in that my waters immediately broke and I was having very strong regular contractions, no way in hell I could've pottered around at home with that labour!

slower second labour at home:
made pigs in blankets
watched DVDs
chatted to DH and the MW while bouncing on the birth ball
played with a juggling ball
counted out loud
had about 5 baths...

With ds2,3,&4, I did a food shop. Contracting while leaning over the trolley. My mum wanted me to abandon my shopping, but I said I couldn't have this baby until I had all my food

Faffed about a lot.
DC1 went to hospital faaaaar too soon. Not before I rearranged the entire bedroom and ironed the bed linen.
DC2 ironed bed linen and lifted a tumble dryer on top of a fridge freezer
DCs 4 & 5 involved more ironing of bed linen and tons of cleaning. I had them at home so also lots of tea drinking and tv watching.

Ok labour started Mon evening. Went well for 1st 24 hours. Got to 4 com and every 3 - 5 min contractions and it stopped. Contractions every 15 mins ... for 2 days! MW said enough was enough ( i couldn' lie down and threw up anything i ate) so I went to hospital to be induced. Can honestly not remember being concerned about activities or what I had planned which went completely out of window in circs. And I think you'll agree I had plenty of time to be bored. Be kind to yourself! And if its still a problem keep on having kids until it goes according to plan ....
(no I thought not ...!)

I was overdue and had downed so many cups of rasberry leaf tea, I had a show and small bleed ( about 1pm Monday). Went into labour ward to be monitored and I was 2cm dilated. Bleed was fine so went home.

I had on and off pains ( enough to prevent me from sleeping) but just paced the living room, watching rubbish TV. DH was asleep upstairs at my request tbh as hate being fussed over although fine when had the flu! as felt I needed to concentrate.

0430 - Wednesday - pain too much and contractions every 4 mins. Woke DH up on arrival I was 8cm and DS was born by rotation forceps at 12.41pm.

Biting the sofa and chucking my TENS across the room helped during those long nights. :0

Walked around the house a lot and did a lot of kneeling on all fours. Ate bananas! DH was wonderful, he never left my side for both labours and during contractions he made me make lists of things to keep my mind off the pain (I discovered I only know 10 US states!). Both births were at home so didn't transfer - and they were mercifully short so didn't spend much time wondering what to do next.

ladies. I love you all

I wouldn't recommend watching Band of Brothers whilst sitting on a birthing ball. It made for quite a heightened emotional experience and my labour will forever be linked to memories of war scenes and men crying. Instead get a nice positive set of DVDs.

I was in labour for days! Granted, most of it was latent, but it bloody hurt....a LOT! DD was back to back & no one had worked this out and every little contraction felt like someone had hold of my spine!

Felt first contractions about 11.30pm on Weds night. Dozed on and off, but was in pain/excited!
10pm Thurs (having done F' all all day in case something happened and with short but regular & painful contractions) went to MLU...1cm! Got sent home!
10.30am Friday, went back to MLU, in a lot of pain and still 1cm! :( Got sent home again. Had about 3 baths & some fish & chips for lunch (my last supper ). Have not had proper sleep since Tuesday by this point! More useless pottering & agonising contractions.
10pm Friday call MLU and MW book me into the main hospital for Sat am for induction.
More baths.
2am Saturday, arrive at main hospital in ridiculous amounts of pain & completely exhausted. Given first proper pain relief (Pethedine, which made me sick & drowsy). 3cm.
8am epidural. 4cm.
12pm syntocin (sp?) drip.
4.19pm DD born & is 'discovered' that she was back to back...that's right, they hadn't figured it out despite the horrific back pain!!

So if I had to do it all again I'd definitely have used my 'time' more productively! Perhaps cleaned the bathroom/scrubbed the floors/done several loads of washing/taken up crochet or knitting! But I just expected that something was going to happen, soon! I was in so much pain & found it very hard to believe that nothing was actually progressing & that I would miraculously go from 1cm to 8cm in about an hour! I also think that should this ever happen to me again, I might actually be a bit more vocal about the pain, not sure I was taken seriously!

Ooh this has brought back memories! I had few contraction Mon night after having sweep on the Sunday then went to bed, woke up Tues morning at 5am with strong contractions and got the TENS on, then had contractions every 10 min all day.

I was 40+8 and was booked in for induction later in the week so when labour started I was really keen to make sure it didn't slow down again so tried to potter around as much as poss.

IIRC I watched the last few episodes of The Wire sat on my birthing ball, read a book in the garden as was beautiful sunny day, tried to cook DP dinner and he ended up with a plate of mashed potatoes (he wanted liver but I drew the line there!). In the evening we watched England/ Switzerland in the Euro qualifiers (I do like football so not DP fault :)), followed by the Brit awards as contraction got to every 3 min. Got to hosp about 11pm and was in the pool at 2am - the fire alarm went off at about 4am but thank god I didn't have to get out the pool, can you imagine having to stand out in the car park? Eventually MW broke waters for me as was nearly fully dilated and they still hadn't gone, but had meconium so wasn't allowed back in the pool which was a bit rubbish. Also had to walk back to delivery suite - I remember asking the MW if the baby would fall out , wishful thinking. DD born 10:13 on the Wed morning

Badgerwife, I think you just made my day, that is exactly the sort of thing I'll end up doing :o

I had two labours. The first was induced at 35 weeks because I had pre-eclampsia. It was also a twin pregnancy. I was advised to have an epidural because of the above factors making me high risk, so I did. I was 3cm dilated and having regular but painless contractions when I had the epidural put in and then soon after had my waters broken. I spent an uneventful five hours lying on a bed in the labour ward with my husband reading bits out of the newspaper to me until it got to the exciting part - pushing. He held a leg for me and was very encouraging.

Second labour - again a twin pregnancy - started with my waters breaking at home in bed early morning. Husband jumped out of bed in a flash and was busy getting our older twins ready to go to the childminder while I readied myself for the trip to hospital. It was a bit of a hairy ride there as my contractions were two minutes apart and my husband kept yelling 'Shall I just pull over and call an ambulance?' We made it there in time thankfully. I don't really remember much about the next forty minutes other than my labour was fast and furious and I was off my face on gas and air while the anaesthetist tried to site an epidural as my twin two was transverse. I was pushing about five minutes after the epidural kicked in. I spewed as twin one's head crowned and then the registrar performed an internal podalic version and breech extraction on twin two. Husband jumped up and punched the air with joy when he learned we had a second pigeon pair!

He was pretty good all in all - and continues to be so.

DD- 5 days late, went out for a meal with DH, woke at 4am with what I thought was a dodgy stomach from food, 5am phoned hospital who said to come in as there was 3ft of snow and it was -25c outside. Warm coat no longer fitted over bump so froze whilst DH warmed the car up. Hospital was warm though. DD was back to back, had mobile epidural, watched TV, wandered round, watched the snow, had urge to push, DD born back to back at 11am. Midwife gained a degree in needlework as DD wasn't too kind to my bits!

DS...Hmmm, 9 days late, no sign of labour, picked DD up from school, major placental abruption occured, phone hospital, phoned ambulance, phoned DH, then neighbour, then my mum to tell her where DD was. Got in ambulance at 4pm, 4.30pm ambulance punctures on motorway, 5.45pm arrive at hospital after being transfered between two ambulances (should only be 20 mins journey), finally hear DS's heartbeat, cry with relief, prepped for c-section, DS born, I go into shock!

Two very different births!

I was induced in hospital and too afraid to have an epidural so I just screamed when I had air and wheezed when not. It passed the time :(

OP I did almost the exact opposite to you, woke up at 7am with waters going, immediately leapt up and did lots (housework, pottering, played scrabble), in retrospect I really wished I'd just stayed in bed and tried to get some more rest. I think it's very easy to beat yourself up about things you could/should have done differently but you can only do what feels right at the time. I eventually decided nothing much was going to happen and tried to go back to bed at 10pm which is when it all started to get a bit hectic so I never got any sleep, in the end DS1 didn't turn up until 2pm the next day and I was really tired by then.

DS2 I spent the early stages looking after DS1, once he'd gone to bed I watched shameless and then called the MW, she didn't turn up for another 3 hours and nearly missed DS2's arrival.

I spent an hour pretending I wasn't in labour, an hour running about and legging it up and down the stairs two at a time trying to get things ready and ring someone, then an hour trying not to push. Then I had a baby. DP spent the time I was in labour at the shops, having a Costa coffee, on a bus, then breaking traffic laws.

In labour with DD1, I watched a movie, filled the pool (then had to empty and refill it as I had used the wrong hose or something equally silly:o). With DD2 I made pancakes for a few friends and made necklaces with DD1. WIth both, I paced a lot and tried to keep moving (waddling mostly).

I started having contractions at about 10pm on a Friday evening. Like the OP I tried to sleep. I only got a few minutes of sleep as I woke up each time I had another contraction. I wish I'd just given up trying to sleep and just been more active (other than walking to the toilet and sitting on that). I eventually gave birth at 4pm on the Saturday and had to have an episiostomy. Whether I could have avoided that and/or shortened my labour if I had been more active in the night I don't know. I went into hospital at 9am on the Saturday and when I was examined at about 11am I was 5cm dilated. Could probably have gone to hospital a bit later too but I was keen to have some gas and air.

My labour was fairly speedy (8 hours, but only 4 hours of it what I would call full on labour, complete with g & a and screams )... but in the 4 hours of contractions every 5 mins or so before it all really kicked off I:

• watched a Louis Theroux documentary on Africa bouncing on a birth ball;
• ate biscuits between contractions;
• had an hour long bath with lavendar oil;
• paced around lots and hovered on the loo (y'know, with that weird feeling like you are about to poo but actually are in labour thing... ooh, so much pressure!).

After that, I was 8cm dilated when the midwife checked! (and was too late for any of the pain relief I fancied by then - au naturel only - bleeding ouch!)

Then had 3 hours of pushing ... the little madam got stuck and needed her dear mummy to have an episiotomy - nice!

Oh, and DP spent the time I was in labour taking his own sweet time to get to the hospital... he arived as she/I (never know which one you say!) crowned!!!!

(I was in being monitored in hospital pre being induced anyway... following my call to say "get here", he had a shower, made a bacon sandwich and generally farted around....)

DS - 8 days late, unexpected back labour, very long - started at bedtime, tried to sleep btwn contractions, scribbled down times as they woke me up. Woke up as waters broke, tried warm bath (did bugger all for the pain). spent rest of labour vomiting copiously, both at home and in hospital (I went in quite early due to not being able to handle the pain at home) and trying full range of pain relief and interventions (didn't quite get to cs, but damn near). No opportunity or inclination to do anything other than be in labour.

DD - 10 days late. quicker. had a shower and shaved legs and pits. told dh i though this was it. phoned hospital (supposed to go in early as needed ABs in labour). sorted out childcare for ds who was off school ill. dh put the TENS on for me. took ds to friends house. went to hospital . waited sodding ages in maternity triage, did some vomiting. made it to 8cms with tens, then finally taken to delivery suite and used G&A, no time to 'do' anything else (including getting the ABs)!

Don't be hard on yourself. Labour is enough to do! and ime back labour is particularly all-encompassing. It is easy to look back and say "if only I had..." but when you are in the moment, and in pain, you don't always do what the 'ideal' is, and often, you can't do it anyway as the 'ideal' is based on a fictitious never-actually-happened labour. It's like all the baby books and you have to tell yourself "my baby has never read this book"... your body has not read the labour and delivery books.

on my first DD i stayed at home for the first 4 hours,walked around, had a bath etc when i had overwhelming contractions and sickness that's when i decided to head to the birthing unit, was 4cm on arrival ,walked corridors for next 5 hours and gave birth 10 mins after getting in birthing pool xx this time was hoping for home water birth but as im suffering quite badly with SPD am considering hospital as birthing unit is closing before due date and don't know how Spd will affect labouring :(

This all very familiar, I had a lovely 42 hour labour , contractions started at about 8.30, dh was on the computer so I told him I was going upstairs as I thought they had started, I got very comfy on the bed with a large bean bag and the tv remote, I was having a good old huff and puff up there and realised that 2 hours had passed and no sign of dh. Contractions were still fairly irregular so I was in no hurry to go to the hospital, but it would have been nice for him to show an interest. He eventually came upstairs and ran a bath, I thought he was being really lovely, until he then got in to it!! A full hour later, he got into bed next to me and went to sleep!! At about 4 am I thought I was getting close so made him get up and take me to the local birth unit (not allowed to give birth there but they could check on me before the 25 minute journey to the hospital) and they confirmed I was still only 2 cm, and sent us home. After 2 more visits to the birth unit on Saturday they finally agreed Saturday night to send me to Hospital as I was having 4 min contractions but not dilating. Saturday night in the Hospital was me in the full throws of labour waters broken for me to get it moving along not daring to be more than 2 feet from my gas and air pipe, and him on the chair with a blanket, fast asleep again!! DS finally arrived late Sunday afternoon.

Don't worry op about what you did or didn't do, or what dh did or didn't do there is no changing the situation now. We are still married and ttc again (but if he does this again I will remove his capability to pee with a rusty spoon), it is all over and done with now, apart from whenever he thinks he has a hard life, I have to remind him he has had 2 extra nights sleep than me!!