I didn't go to hospital till my contractions were 3 minutes apart. With a high risk labour they are very keen to get you lying down and keeping still so they can monitor you - but of course this slows down labour and makes it harder to do naturally.
That's certainly what happened with my first - I was doing fine, bouncing on a ball and using the gas and air. Then the consultant came along, looked at my notes, said "she shouldn't be here", and had me moved from the midwife unit, given an epidural and hooked up to monitors. 24 hours later, DD still hasn't arrived, and I had to have an EMCS.
So with DS, I resisted all attempts to get me to go sooner, and stayed at home where I could keep moving. At the hospital, I held out as long as I could to remain mobile and upright, managing the pain with just G&A and the ball, but eventually was persuaded to lie down and have an epidural... Thankfully by this point my labour was a lot further progressed, and DS was born naturally after 5 hours in labour and 20 minutes of pushing.
Obviously that won't be everyone's experience, and both of mine lead to healthy babies, which is the main thing, but I did feel very much with both of my birthday that the medical team would have preferred it if they could have removed the experience from my control entirely!