How long from being engaged to going into labour?

[FoxSticks]

I'm 39+2 with my second dc and had my midwife appointment today and the baby is engaged. With my first, my waters broke early and I had to be induced so have not gone into labour naturally before. I'm quite excited that the baby is engaged and hope that means things will happen soon but am I being optimistic?

I only have my experience of DS to go by, which was 6 days from starting to engage to birth. On the Monday afternoon at my hospital appointment I was apparently just starting to engage, and head midwife said it would probably be a couple of weeks.
On the Wednesday morning I was 2/5 engaged and then on Friday afternoon 1/5 engaged (very regular monitoring at hospital as I had a lot of problems in pregnancy).
Saturday afternoon my waters broke and labour started, I opted to try to wait for steroid injections to take effect at I was 35 weeks at the time, and so DS was born on Sunday afternoon, screaming and hollering with apgar scores of 9 and 10, and weighing 8lbs3.
I was told that second babies come quicker once they're fully engaged, but can pop in and out of engagement. Not sure how true that is though.
I had already had a show and had been getting weird backache/labour symptoms for two weeks previously though. Hope this helps!

I'm afraid you may be optimistic... DS2 was 2/5s for about 4 weeks before he was induced. I even had a sweep a week earlier and was told I was all ready to go, he would prob arrive in 24 hours but alas no. I have heard subsequent babies engage earlier but doesn't mean they will arrive earlier. Mega uncomfortable!! Hang in there. X

Sorry not good news from me, all five of mine engaged really early, fully eengaged by 35wks and stayed that way but I went two weeks overdue with each time. I think with me it was a space issue, I am short but have big babies so they had to engage and be low down so they would fit!

Ds1 maybe 3 weeks? DS2 bounced in and out of my pelvis over the last couple of weeks: free at brim-2/5 engaged, 4/5, 1/5, free at brim, 2/5 etc . He wasn't actually engaged at all when my waters broke and was delivered 2.5 hours later.