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hospital is an hour away - how long to leave it?

gatsbygirlgatsbygirl member
in Natural Birth

This will be my second baby. I know second babies usually come faster, but obviously it's hard to predict. My first labor took 20 hours from the first slight twinge to DD being born (10 hours early labor, 10 hours established labor).

I really want to have this baby naturally without an epidural or being induced. I have two problems though: a) hospital is an hour away. It's about a 50 minute drive into the city, so could take longer if there's traffic. b) I'm GBS+, so I'll need to allow a little bit of extra time for the antibiotics.

I'm just trying to figure out the best timing for all of this. I really want to stay home as long as possible, but I don't want to risk getting there too late if the baby comes faster than expected and the drive takes longer.

My friend (who lives in the same town as me), who had the same OB, ended up agreeing to an induction at her 39 week appt. The dr. examined her and said she was 4 cm already and basically talked her into staying and being induced instead of risking having the baby in the car on the drive over. I'm curious to know if anybody else has been in this situation? What did you do if your hospital was really far away?

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Re: hospital is an hour away - how long to leave it?

  • monkeyqueenmonkeyqueen
    I live an hour away from my hospital.    I laboured at home as long as I could and went to the hospital when contractions were around 5 - 10 minutes apart.   With my last, I waited a bit too long.   About half way there, I felt like I needed to push, so I just panted the rest of the way.  When we get there, I asked me to wait to push until the Dr. got there.....so I panted some more.
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  • wheelsonthebuswheelsonthebus member
    I'm in the same situation. The hospital is 45 mins away with no traffic and that's rare. With my DS, I was in early labor for a couple of days and when active labor actually started my contractions were 2-3 mins apart. I had no idea when to head to the hospital. I also want to labor at home for as long as possible. I'm interested to see the responses.

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  • electricdoctor83electricdoctor83 member

    I live a little over an hour away...an hour if we hit NO traffic at all (like in the middle of the night).  My first came in 15 hours and that was with an epidural slowing things down and even though I was 10 cm they had me labor down for quite some time since DS wasn't in the right position.

    This time my OB said to just head to the hospital as soon as I get regular timeable contractions.  I also have an incompetent cervix and baby is already locked and loaded at 25 weeks.  He expected things will progess fast and I really really don't want a "car baby".

    I also don't want to come in too soon.  My OB said he'll just send me out to lunch or dinner or something close to the hospital if he checks me and I'm not that far along or I'm not really "in labor" yet.  DH's dad is right down the way from the hospital so I'm guessing we could go there and I can take a long shower or something while we wait.

    He did say if my water breaks then no matter what get to the hospital asap because with DS that's when things progessed fast.

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  • gwendolynclaregwendolynclare
    I'm in the same boat; I'll probably just leave whenever's convenient for us and plan on going to a nearby park to walk if we get there before active labor has started.  My due date is Friday, so if I deliver over the weekend, I'll try and remember to check back in so I can tell y'all what we ended up doing.
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