STM's- labor length.

cassied7 · October 2014

@MusicFanatic‌ I know I've told you my story, but I'll share it again for the rest to read. April 10, 2013 I called out of work because my feet swelled so big over night that I didn't have any shoes that fit, (I thought this was a normal end of pregnancy thing). The next day I thought my water broke so I went to the hospital. It didn't break...I wet myself. They took my blood pressure and it was sky high. I showed them my ankles and they said I had pitting edema, so then they did some blood tests and and a urine test. I had protein in my urine and my platelets were waayyyyyyy too low. I was diagnosed with HELLP Syndrome. I was put on a magnesium drip right away and induced a few hours later. In total, I labored 38 hours, 24 of those wonderful hours were epidural free. I think I could have made it the whole 38 if it wasn't for the magnesium, but who really knows. I pushed for 1 1/2 hours wearing my eye shades the entire time...there were wayyyy more people in the room than I expected so I started to get shy and the eye shades totally helped. There were extra doctors and the NICU in the room, even though I was over 39 weeks, because I was on the mag and having HELLP. I was in the hospital for 5 days and on mag for 4 of them. They even discharged my new baby before myself, which was scary. The lesson I learned in all of this is that extreme overnight swelling is NOT normal and needs to get checked out right away.

mshepherd20 · October 2014

Baby 1 - my water broke at 2:30 am and son was born at 9:16 am. I pushed for 3 full contractions

Baby 2 - contractions started around 6:45 am and baby was born at 1:05 pm. I didn't have to push for a full contraction.

A nurse commented on this pregnancy that I have a tilted uterus and that's probably the cause for my quick labors.

Edvent · October 2014

I had been having non progressing contractions for weeks. I was 39 weeks Thursday and was already out of work because my contractions were so disruptive. I noticed crazy swelling overnight in my ankles but thought it was normal (like @cassied7). We went to dinner and the contractions picked up. I was able to sleep a few hours and woke around 2 with worse contractions, bounced on the ball for an hour and decided to go in to L&D.

When I got there I was only 1cm but was having regular contractions. They were about to send me home to labor but my BP was high so they checked my urine and my protein was sky high, they also noticed what they said was pitting edema. So they diagnosed me with severe preeclampsia and started me immediately on pitocin and magnesium. Labored 12 more hours on the pit and progressed to 8cm but then stalled. They said they could tell from feeling her head that she was not in a good position, but due to the mag I was limited in being able to move around and help her turn.

She started having decels during contractions, then her heart rate went over 200 so they sent me for emergency csection. At that point nothing mattered other than having her out safely. So I guess I labored 12 hours prior to the csection (if I don't count the early labor at home). Hoping to avoid the whole labor bit this time (and the preeclampsia bit) and go in calmly for my RCS at 39 weeks! We'll see if LO goes along with my plans!

csjsmom · October 2014

My mom was in labor for 3 hours with me (her first) so I had high hopes. But I didn't follow in her footsteps.

DS1 my water broke just before midnight. Meconium in fluid so went to hospital. Didn't have contractions on my own so was induced in the morning. He was posterior so had horrible back labor. There was the "perfect storm" of things not going well so I ended up with a c-section just before midnight. Around 24 hours in.

DS2 I had contractions regularly every 10 minutes from dinner until I went to bed on a Friday night. They went away. Same thing happened Saturday night. Started again around dinner Sunday night but didn't go away overnight. I did sleep. Just noticed them when I got up to go to the bathroom. I was 7cm by around 10pm when I went to the hospital. He was born around 11:45 and I pushed for 40 minutes. Most of the day was ok. I was out doing things. The end was intense. Maybe from about 7 or 8 onwards?

tripletoe · October 2014

I woke up wedne at 2am with strong contractions, they were about 5-6 min apart. I headed to the hospital around 6. The nurse thought I had a slow leak, but the Dr said no and sent me home. Went back at 5, I had been having contractions all day, sent home again. They gave me sleeping pills and morphine and I actually fell asleep for a few hours. Went in Thursday at around 10 am because I was sure I was leaking amniotic fluid, which I was, so I was admitted and induced with pitocin. 18 hours after my induction DD was born at 6am Friday morning after 2.5 hours of pushing. She then had to spend a week in the nicu due to an infection, because they figure my water had indeed been broken since the first time I went in. Mine was a long ordeal and I hope its not as drawn out this time!

elleswarth · October 2014

Induced due to a week overdue. In at 8am, pit at 10, epi by 11, pushing by 5pm and baby by 5:15! Hoping for a repeat (minus the week overdue) with this one!

Aillise · October 2014

My water broke when I woke up, I headed to L&D after a shower. When I got to L&D it was almost 11:00 am. I started Pitocin through IV, hours later I got my epi, then had it increased so I could sleep the night. (I wasn't dialating past 5 cm) Dr. ordered nurse to put catheter with sailine in my uterus when she went to do that she said oh your 9 cm dialated your going to have the baby tonight. That was around 11:00pm.

DS heart rate was low, and the nurses were taking turns tapping his head while inside of me. ( Very annoying feeling). At 11:30ish I started pushing against dr.s orders because something was coming out one way or another, and I wanted nurses to stop tapping. When I pushed it leveled out his heart rate and my dr said " His heart rate went up, try pushing again". I did and about 4 pushes later he was born. At 11:57pm. 3 minutes before mothers day. Nurses asked me if I could wait 3 minutes on the last push I said no lol.

Summary of timeframes - All week prior to his birth I had very constant contractions that were timeable but not painful. Contractions never hurt until I got Pitocin on day of. I was in the hospital for 12 hours before he was born. I had hard labor for maybe a couple hours, and active labor for 45 minutes, and pushed for half an hour.

ETA: Forgot to add, DS was born at 37 weeks.

Mom2anAngel2 · October 2014

I had back labor and really didn't realize that I was in labor. It started around 9pm. I had my 39 week appointment in the morning and thought nothing of it. At my appointment I was told I was in labor and 4 cm dilated (I guess that was 12 hours after the first back pains). We headed to the hospital and when they checked me I was 9 cm dilated. By that time the back pain was intense and stopped me in my tracks each time it occurred. I got my epi and they broke my water about 30 minutes later. I pushed for about 30 minutes before DS was born. It felt really fast because I didn't realize I was in labor.

Lanatir · October 2014

I was induced, so I don't know what to expect this time around.

They started pitocin around 9 PM on a Friday night (if you have the choice, and your hospital is like mine was, don't let them start pitocin at night... Seriously blood pressure monitored every 30 minutes?!?! I didn't sleep the whole night). Everything was easy until like 3 PM when I guess my body decided to for real have contractions or something. Like I had them before, but then the ones I started getting then made me want to push and I was only at 3 or 4 cm. So I got the epidural, progressed to a 10 by about 6 PM. By 6:30 PM I was ready to push and had to wait a few minutes yet for the OB to show up... I pushed 3x all of something like 10 minutes and DD was out at 6:44 PM. I got an episiotomy and she had to go get her lungs suctioned out because she shot out so fast the vaginal canal didn't heimlich the amniotic fluid out of her like vaginal birth is supposed to do.

So from the time they started pitocin to pushing was about 21.5 hours and then pushing was all of 10 minutes...

CoachTay · October 2014

I started having contractions at 10p on Wednesday, was admitted to the hospital around 11p on Thursday, docs broke my water at 7a on Friday, started pushing at 1p on Friday and B was born at 1:59p. I only had to push for that long because it took a while for them to realize that she was coming out face out.. a quick snip and she was out with the next push.

aerotigergirl · October 2014

csjsmom said:

My mom was in labor for 3 hours with me (her first) so I had high hopes. But I didn't follow in her footsteps. DS1 my water broke just before midnight. Meconium in fluid so went to hospital. Didn't have contractions on my own so was induced in the morning. He was posterior so had horrible back labor. There was the "perfect storm" of things not going well so I ended up with a c-section just before midnight. Around 24 hours in. DS2 I had contractions regularly every 10 minutes from dinner until I went to bed on a Friday night. They went away. Same thing happened Saturday night. Started again around dinner Sunday night but didn't go away overnight. I did sleep. Just noticed them when I got up to go to the bathroom. I was 7cm by around 10pm when I went to the hospital. He was born around 11:45 and I pushed for 40 minutes. Most of the day was ok. I was out doing things. The end was intense. Maybe from about 7 or 8 onwards?

I've heard other birth stories that mentioned sleeping through the early contractions, too. I could not have slept through any of my contractions. I'm hoping to have this kind of an experience this time around!

With DS, the very early ones weren't horribly painful, but they would have woken me from sleep (maybe I'm just a light sleeper). Within two hours, they'd gotten to the point where they were so painful I was puking with every contraction. (Sorry if that's TMI.) At this point, I was only "a fingertip" dilated, according to the midwife. I went back home and labored on my own for about 5-6 more hours and when I got back to the hospital, I was at 9cm.

LauraElizabeth85 · October 2014

Labor with DD (my first) was 4 hours start to finish with 10 minutes of pushing.

RibbetRibbet · October 2014

I went in to be induced with cervadil at 7pm. They told me I was having contractions and was 3 cm but they weren't close enough so I started pit. at 9pm. At 11pm they broke my water. I got the epi. at close to 2 am and slept until 7 am when I felt pressure. I was told to labor down for an hour and then do practice pushing at 8 am. I pushed (maybe) 3 times and was told to stop until the doctor got there. The doctor walked in at 9 am and he was born at 9:07.

aerotigergirl · October 2014

Alright, a couple of people have mentioned a couple of things I'm not familiar with...

1.) What do you mean by "labor down"?

2.) What is "practice pushing"?

Even though I got to 10cm, I didn't get a chance to do any pushing with DS, so I'm still a newb when it comes to some of these things.

Mrs_Bennett · October 2014

@aerotigergirl‌
I believe that laboring down simply means that you're dilated to 10cm, but not ready to push yet because the baby is still high.
Agree with the PP about "practice pushing". I think it's just what they say when you start pushing, so they can tell how efficient your pushing will be. I remember "practice" pushing with DS1, but they never told me to start "real" pushing, haha.

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