Fact or folklore - second labour quicker with smallish gap

[Liveinthepresent]

Does anyone know if this is just anecdotal or fact?
My first labour was probably about 'normal' for a first - 12 hours in total.
People keep telling me this one will be super quick - DH is worried about me getting to hospital on time - its not far but he knows I will want to cope at home as long as possible...

Two year gap.

#1 - four days of 'latent' labour, 5.5 hours active labour
#2 - 4.5 hours of 'latent' labour, 25 mins active labour.

Latent labour in my case means full-on contractions without much dilation. Second time around I went from 2cm to delivery in the 25 minutes.

Thanks everyone - I will remain cautiously optimistic then.
Thanks for the stats Visualise - if I could just be average again then that would be great !
Another question - those who had back to back labours - did you know baby was back to back before labour started - or only as things progressed ? Sounds arduous !!

Dc1 - about 12 hours from the very start to delivery, 8 ish hours 'established labour'.
Dc2 - about 2.5 hours start to finish, and went from intermittent mild contractions to pushing stage very suddenly.

Dc1 back-to-back (found out with a few hours to go), not traumatic.

19 month age gap.

First labour 12 hours, then a 14.5 month age gap and labour 2.35 mins from first contraction to baby out. I very very nearly ended up giving birth in the car on way to hospital and if I had listened to the midwife on the phone in the labour ward who was trying to put me off coming in I would have given birth on my kitchen floor!

So my advice is trust your instincts and if you feel like the time has come to go to hospital then don't hesitate, good luck!

2.35 minutes?!

Lol! 2 hours 35 mins, ciders gone to my head!

2.35 mins would be pretty impressive ( and terrifying!)

First was 7 hours, second was 3. The second was pretty intense, but at least it was over quickly.

16 month age gap here

6 hours labour 9ins pushing with first and 2 hours 15 labour and 3 mins pushing with second

I didn't have a back to back labour, more back to side-DS2' s back was on the right side of the bump. He'd been in that position for at least 3 weeks beforehand, so I'd been expecting things to be a bit harder.

It was worse than my previous labours, the pain didn't go away completely between contractions, but it was still bearable. Only the last 15 minutes of a nearly 10 hour labour were really awful (and that was because he came out with his hand on his chin)

Ds1 - about 12 hours start to finish.

DS2 - latent labour for about 4 hours, so mild I wasn't even sure anything was happening, and then once it kicked off it was an hour from start to finish.

12 month gap between them!