Long labour - how did you cope?

[decaffeinated]

I've been having contractions from every 5 mins, to every 10, 15 and 30 continuously over the past 36 hours.

Have been to hospital and haven't dilated at all, but the cervix has thinned, so they sent me home.

The contractions are full on, but I've managed to get some proper rest today, and am eating regular meals to keep my body fuelled.

Has anyone else experienced a long labour, and how did you get through it? I'm trying to remain positive, but I am a bir worried about pain levels if these are supposedly only warm-ups, and also about tiring when it matters. Any advice / experience gratefully received.

(in case it makes a difference, this is a VBAC).

Not really an experience of long labours - but with my first I was in labour all night at home - after 10 hours of full on contractions all night 9pm-7am got to hospital and wasn't dilated at all!

But by 10am I was fully dilated. They were a bit more painful (7am-10am) but I sat in the bath at the hospital guzzling gas and air.

So think positive, the dilating might happen quickly.

hi there hope things are moving along now

I had a very long labour and if I to do it again I would have stayed home longer, kept using the tens which helped me, looking at things that kept me distracted
dh was the best help making sure I was consulted throughout even when I could not speak
rest as much as you can I suppose if at all possible

best of luck soon you will be holding your baby and that is all that matters

do you know the position of the baby?

My first labour was 56 hours (OP). Advice based on that would be:

1. Stay at home as long as you can
2. Rest, eat and drink a little.
3. Alternate the rest with periods of gentle mobility -walk around, go up and down stairs slowly, sit backwards on a chair or on a birthing ball (and continue this when you get to hospital, even if you choose an epidural you can sit on a birthing ball, turn on your side etc)
4. IMPORTANT: try not to worry about how long it is taking, or how much it might hurt later on - deal with that when it happens. I found the fear of pain much worse than the reality and fear made the pain less bearable. HTH

Good luck xx

sfx - baby's head down, laying to the left - perfect position.

Thanks all for the reassurance, all sounds like good advice, and having already been to the hospital, definitely don't want to go again unless there's something significant happening. It's a good half an hour's drive, which is making it a bit of a worry, but I'm sure I'll cope - I'll have to!

Okay, I'll just take one contraction at a time, don't worry, nothing to fear... and repeat!

good luck decaffeinated

What would have helped me during my long labour, was having a midwife with me. I was basically left most of the time, until on the third day I finally had an epidural - then, they had to sit with me to monitor me

I wonder now if I'd had a midwife with me much more in earlier labour whether I might have got on alot better. I was so terrified and vulnerable and I had only DH with me who, bless him, was not an ideal birth partner because he'd never been there before!

So my advice would be beg, steal or borrow a midwife. Get your birth partner to advocate for you at all times to keep getting the midwife in to you, to keep guiding you through the contractions and giving you strategies to cope.

I would also say keep active but allow yourself some rest. I was so into active labour, and spent three blummin days and two nights walking around - of course I was exhausted. Yes it's important to keep the baby hopefully in a good position but not at the cost of you being too exhausted.

Lots of luck x

decaff that sounds good and one contraction at a time seems like a good strategy
all the best

My waters broke at 5am on Sunday, Went to the hospital about 11am to be told that just my hind waters had gone and to go home and basically wait for my contractions to start which didn't happen till 11:30 that night (and when they did there was no build up of pain just iregular)
I went back to the hospital at 6:30pm on Monday thinking i must have been at least 5cm to be then told that i was only 2cm The very nice midwife gave me a sweep and told me that things should speed up now (which they didn't) and sent me on my way with some paracetamol (hmm) .
After another three hours in unbareable pain at home i went back to hospital to be looked at again and was still only 2cm. Just as they were going to send me back home again i demanded "Some drugs" and got given my own room and a lovely dose of morphine .
Three hour later i was 7cm and asked for gas and air (which was also great). At 8-9cm my midwife had to leave the room to attend to an emergancy in another room and left me alone with dp who was great. I was attached to the moniters because dd had pooed inside me and was showing other signs of destress. Also i had an urge to push when the midwife was out of the room so dp had to get her to come back because we both thought dd was coming there and then (which she wasn't).
When the midwife did come back she decided that forceps had to be used to get dd out then all of a sudden there was two midwifes and a doctor in the room.
After 10 mins of pushing and force (on the forceps part) dd was born at 5:07am on the Tuesday .

Any update - I guess things have sped up and you've gone in.
I was having contractions for a week, got really tired and I think this made things keep going off overnight when I tried to rest. Then once my waters broke I dilated quite quickly, and pain wasn't really a problem becuase I think I'd had lots of time to build up. Few problems due to meconium, synto drip, ventouse but fine really.
Afterwards I felt like I'd been hit by a bus though - absolutely exhausted, though on a high as well. So take care of yourself when you do get home!

Are you still at home decaffeinated?

I had a 3 day and night latent labour, which was really really hard... but it did all seem worth it in the end (DD was a planned homebirth - so there were never any getting-to-hospital problems)!

Things that helped me:

-- Music (distraction)
-- Tens
-- Eating little and often (lots of chopped fruit and sugary cups of tea)
-- DH massaging the small of my back
-- HOT power shower on my back
-- Birthing pool (do you have one at home to labour in?)
-- Sleep, even if they are micro naps of 10 mins or less - every little helps - although it is disorientating to wake up in the middle of a contraction!

I know how disheartening it is to have these VERY painful contractions for hours on end and then be told you've not dilated at all / dilated less than a cm since the previous examination the day before etc etc... but they ARE all doing something, and just because it might take you 3 days to get to 4cm (and "real" labour), that doesn't mean the next 6cm will take as long. In fact, once I got 4cm and was allowed to use gas and air, I was flying... (and pushed for less than half an hour).

Good luck! You can do it!

Hey decaffeinated - I'm in the same boat and sincerely hope all these positive tales about a short labour come to fruition for both of us soon!

I had a show last Wednesday followed by regularish (10min - 3min apart) reasonably uncomfortable contractions between then and now. Two trips to the hospital only to be told I'm not dilated have not improved my general impatience, even though I'm only 37 weeks.

Thankfully the baby is fully engaged and full term now so bring it on I say! I'm taking full advantage of DH working from home shall we say