Has anyone else had this?
First baby had a horribly long latent stage - around 24 hours. I didn't cope well with it at all. It was start/stop and contractions didn't become regular. I got excited much too early and ran out of energy. Not helped by it having started at about 11pm so by the time baby was born I'd been awake for about 36 solid hours!
Second baby waters broke first but then contractions built up slowly. It was still really slow - about 13 hours before I progressed past 1cm dilated, but things progressed steadily, they didn't stop and start. I coped fine with it until about hour 10.
Seem to be in early/latent stages with DC3 now since about 2am this morning, but it keeps starting and stopping. I'm resting, eating, staying calm and trying to protect that oxytocin but a bit reluctant to ship DS2 off to his babysitter too early. Did go for a walk but nothing. Pain level is absolutely fine.
What gives?! I thought the stopping and starting was just a first baby thing! I don't especially mind as will just try and take it easy, but DH is driving me mad being all jumpy thinking things are going to suddenly kick off or talking about methods to kickstart things. And I don't know whether to put normal life on hold and concentrate on conserving energy or just try to continue as we would have done if I didn't feel like I was in labour :/ I am not keen to try all the "jump start labour" ideas as I think that will just be exhausting and disappointing/frustrating if it doesn't work.
Has anyone else had this with a second or later baby?