future births

[SummersDay2014]

So for my first birth I was in early labour for 17 hours. Had my water broken at 4 cm dilated after labour stalling. And gave birth less than an hour later. For my second birth I had early labour for 24 hours. Went to hospital after 23 hours had sweep ( was at 3cm) and gave birth within 45 minutes. Now am worried that if I have another child I will have an even longer latent phase but as I have had some type of intervention each time I have no idea how long it could last ! Anyone else been in a similar situation ?? Can you tell me your stories before I decide to have another ??

Latent labour with dd1 for 30 hours. Active labour 2.5 hours.

Latent labour with dd2 for 22 hours - active labour 2 hours.

Mine did get shorter with second but it was similar in that I seem to take a while to get past 4cm then bam everything goes quite quickly.

I didn't find latent labour bad at all with dd2. With dd1 she was back to back so it was horrendous. Both times I had sweeps in labour which helped move things along but I didn't feel that was too bad intervention wise.

Did you find latent labour awful with both? My experiences of latent labour were very different due to baby's position.

I'm not sure what latent labour is. Is it not something everyone gets? With my DD I just had a contraction then another 4 minutes later and they just continued like this until they got quicker and she was born 8 hours after first contraction. Could I have had the early labour and not realised it? I feel as daft as I sound.

For me both times I was having painful contractions at regular intervals ie 2 to 3 in 10 minutes for the whole time ( until the sweep then I hopped into pool and suddenly I was bearing down ) Second time was worse because baby's head was in an awkward position. And I was so exhausted !!

I was having this too but the second time the contractions were complete manageable until the last two hours.

Sounds like you got unlucky with the second being in an awkward position. That tends to prolong latent labour. I was lucky I suppose that I had the awkward positioner the first time.

Your next one could be much quicker if baby is in a good position x