Long first labour, nice short second labour? Quick survey...

[Groveregg]

I'm 31 weeks pg for the second time and finally trying to face facts and prepare myself for things. Yes I know that this is a "how long is a piece of string" sort of question and noone can tell me for sure how long things will take, but I am trying to get a bit of a feel for things and how much cover I might need to organise for looking after ds, as I haven't got family nearby...

In my first labour, I started to feel contractions late on a Wednesday night and it went on for days with quite a few trips to the hospital, only to be sent home again because I wasn't dilated enough and contractions weren't coming fast enough. Ds was finally born on the next Tuesday afternoon after a lot of spicy food and pineapple and a few hours on a syntocinon drip. So I was at it for nearly 6 days in total. I've heard countless stories of how second labours are quicker but I'm thinking how many days quicker?! Does anyone else have experience of a long first labour like mine and if so how long did your second labour take?

Thanks all, looking at the results, the verdict seems to vary enormously as I should have expected! Really interesting. It would just be nice to have a crystal ball sometimes...

And thank you motherinferior for the article, very interesting too.

DS1 - contractions for 3 days then 11 hours in hospital

DS2 - contractions for 24 hours then 12 hours in hospital

both vile but worth it of course

My Mum:

36 hours with me
1/2 hour with my sister.

First 30 hours altogether, but only five hours of hard labour.
Second 10 hours altogether, only two hours of hard labour

Both times about 6hrs in total, but second time was much easier - at home, in birthing pool for most of it, only gas and air, as opposed to 1st time being in hospital with epidural and emergency ventouse extraction due to cord prolapse.

First 12 hrs (11 years ago today )
Second 1 1/2 hours

First - 18 hours (epidural, episiotomy, ventouse)

Second - 2.5 hours (little bit of g&a)

First 27 hours followed by emergency cs.
Second booked cs so about 1.5 hours!

1st labour 1.5 hrs (DD1)
2nd labour 50 mins (DD2)
3rd labour 3 hrs (DS)

All only had gas and air and pethidine.

Good luck

dd1 16 hours

dd2 6 hours

Spose that counts as nice and short right....

ds1 - 12 hours
ds2 - 24 hours
Don't think i'll risk a third labour

OK first was 9.25 hours but the last 2 hours of this was pushing out DS, and I had an episiotomy and could hardly sit down for days.

Second was 5.75 hours, but 45 mins before giving birth I was sat at kitchen table, eating porridge and talking to DS (with odd quiet spells gripping edge of table). DD was born 2 mins after my waters broke. 3 pushes if that.

My sister gave birth to her second on Tuesday. Today she took my DD (felt a bit about this) down the highest slide at soft play, after squirming her way up through the various child sized climbing bits.

Oh btw DD was a planned home birth

Yes I had a very quick second labour, but then a longer third labour.

first one -35 hours
second one -5 hours
When i cried when the second one was born it was not with joy over having a new daughter, oh no!! It was because it was all over so quickly!!!

Well i can't really comment in full but....

1. dd took 28 hrs in total from start to finish, but was stuck at 2.5 cm for 18 hrs of that...bummer! as couldnt have much pain relief even though i was in real pain.

2. ds...was booked for elective section but ended up going into labour @ 38 wks (section booked for week 39) BUT got to 3 cm with hardly any pain at all, tempted me to go for a natural but glad i didnt in the end (had 3rd degree tear with dd) as ds was born weighing 9lb 6oz!!

The moral of my story is...how quickly i progressed 2nd time around compared to 1st

Forgot to add...with ds i was 3 cm on arriving at hospital to be checked, and wasnt even sure if i was in labour yet!

dd1 - from feeling first little contraction to birth - 11 hours 25 mins
ds - from first proper contraction to birth (had had 2 false alarms) - 2 hours 9 mins
dd2 - 3 weeks of blardy contractions, several nights of packing and unpacking toothbrush and pacing... had waters broken by mw at hosp at term+6 - from then 4 hours 11 mins
first one was easiest, other two were more intense. all were enjoyable!

ds1 born at 36 weeks took 24 hours of hell (epidural was crap)

dt's induced at 38 weeks less than 4 hours & painless (epidural was fantastic)

first labour was 17hrs (spontaneous labour)
7lb15 dd1
second labour was 10hrs (induced) 17days late
9lb dd2
third labour was 6 hours (induced) 11days late
9lb12 ds
fourth labour was 4hrs 28mins (induced) 2 weeks early 7lb11 dd3 and she was meant to be big according to scans. which is why i was induced early

thats going from a normal pattern of contractions

All done without pain relief, hopefully for my 5th i will have a home birth (after talking dp into having another one)

First babe 16 hours from first twinge, but had syntocinon drip to speed things and emergency venthouse delivery. Ghastly traumatic business but would have been worse without the epidural I guess.
Second babe 6.5 hours from first twinge. Fantastic labour - just part way up on the TENs and no other pain relief. Felt in control.
Third babe stop start stop start for more than 24 hours, but after labour established, about 9 hours. Had Pethidine and couldn't get in control as I was obliged to be on my back- very frustrated.
As I understand it this kind of history is typical in that 1st timers tend to have the worst time, 2nd deliveries are the best even against subsequent deliveries, and 3rd deliveries often have lots of fannying around before really getting underway.
Maybe you should avoid a third

1st 41 hrs
2nd 8 hrs

1st: 38 hours
2nd: 21 hours
3rd: 4.5 hours

Yup, I was amazed too.