Third pregnancies/births go weird?

[blossominlondon]

Expecting baby nr 3, due 7 July 2011.
DD 40+4, 12hr labour, spontaneous vaginal delivery, Manual placenta removal
DS 41+1, 4hr labour, 3 sweeps, spontaneous vaginal delivery

My MW told me delivery of baby nr 3 can be 'weird', that there isn't necessarily a correlation between nr1+2 and now nr3, in terms of length of pregnancy, delivery time, length of labour etc

Of course I hope MW is wrong and 3rd birth is like DS, but without having to wait another 10 days! Is all I can think of these days....

Mums of three or more, any experience?

DC1 41+3 12hr labour, SVD.

DC2 40+3 6hr labour, SVD.

DC3 40+1 2hr labour, SVD.

My 3rd labour wasn't weird at all. Very fast, 2 hours from waters breaking in bed to delivery! It was my easiest birth and I delivered kneeling which was good and apparently I was totally silent as she came out! I cut the cord too.

A MW told me 'alot of ladies struggle to get the 3rd baby out because of muscle laxness.' I was terrified for months & googled alot!

DS1 - 40+10 - Induced, 2 days to get to 3cm, ARM, 4 hours from 3cm to SVD
DS2 - 40+3 - 40 minute labour SVD
DD1 - 40+4 - 1 sweep, 5 hour labour, water birth SVD.

DD1 is now 8 days old and her birth was by far my best experience - calm, quiet and I felt utterly in control. The water birth was fantastic. DS1's was an intervention nightmare and DS2's was a fast & furious panic and resulted in a 3rd deg tear. Each one was completely different, good luck, you will be fine.

I'm also expecting baby no3, due October so will watch this thread with interest! I have also heard the stories about 3rd births being "odd" although have since heard that quantified that there is often a big gap between no2 and no3 and that this effects things.

I saw a private gyne/obs last week to discuss my delivery of DC2. He said, DC1 was hardest, DC2 easier and DC3 easiest, then it starts to get harder gain from DC4 upwards.

40 18hrs svd
40-2 8hrs svd
39-6 12hrs svd

i went in expecting everything to be quicker and fab, my midwife chuckled and said dont be so sure 3rd births are a bit odd they can be longer than second. everyone expects them to be sorter but often they are not. i could have punched her. aside from the length nothing else weird happened.

DS1 39 4hrs SVD
DS2 40 2hrs SVD
DD 38+5 1hr 10 mins SVD

Third delivery was best for me.

DD1: 40wks, 9hr labour (they didn't could previous 8 hours as contractions weren't regular and painful!!), PPH, stitches, when she was 12 weeks old a D&C to remove retained placenta.

DD2: 40+4 - one sweep, just over 4 hrs from waters breaking till delivery, stitches, trip to theatre to manually remove some retained placenta when she was 2 hours old.

DS: 39 wks - 4 hours from waters breaking till delivery. Went from 6cm to 10cm in 4minutes! No stitches and no retained placenta. Home 12 hours later.

I have worked out sitting on a fitball is best place for me during labour and lying in bed the worst apart from final delivery.

DS came because I had gone to bed for an early night as I was very tired (both girls under 4 at the time), water broke at 11.45pm. I have promised myself lots of early nights in the last 2 weeks before no. 4 is due in December : )

My MW told me the third was harder when it came to actually pushing them out. Unfotrunately for me the MW who told me this was right.

DD1 - 38+3, 5hrs
DS - 38+4, 7hrs
DD2 - 40+6, 5hrs

Although there wasn't much dirrefence between the length of each labour, when i looked at the discharge papers there was a massive difference in the length of the 2nd stage. With DD1 and DS it was 15mins combined but with DD2 it was over 30mins.