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I consider the start to be timeable noticeable contractions.

For Evan it was contractions that I couldn't sleep through. I had back labor with him, and it took a long time for them to really get consistent.

Both times, it was when contractions started, but for DD1, I *knew* it was really labor once my water broke (about an hour after contractions started)

Good question... I was induced, I guess I consider my labor to start once I was dilated enough to get on epidural and pitocin...

I say when my water broke--because super painful, 2-minute apart contractions started right after that.

I had all back labor, though, and so if I had any signs of early labor, I didn't know it because I was waiting for something to happen in my belly.

@BadgerMom: Haha I know! That's why I was like hmmm... I guess there is no start to labor really for me until it was time to push, lol!

I counted regular painful contractions that interfered with my ability to do anything other than labor! I started having regular, timetable, uncomfortable contractions in the morning (retrospectively early labor) but worked, etc. It wasn't until I was having to stop and huff and puff while shopping at Costco that evening that I really counted it as true labor!

I'd been having lots of BH contractions. My first real contraction felt... Purposeful. Real. That's when I consider it to have begun. 12 hours later I had my daughter in my arms

My entire labor was 6 hours ... I counted it from the first contraction. It was bad enough that I thought, "I think I'm having a baby tonight!"

@BadgerMom: ha! I was with DH luckily and I was too focused to notice if anyone gave me funny looks. I was pushing the shopping cart so I had that to lean on. But we did go to trader joes after that and I made him go in by himself I was so uncomfortable I thought I'd scare everyone! I was dying for him to come back. Sitting in the car to wait was a terrible idea. I joke that Costco kicked me into active labor though! All the walking and sampling

I've wondered about this as well! I had contractions 10 minutes apart all day, right up to the time my husband came home from work at 6pm. Then, they shifted to 5 minutes apart. From that time until my daughter's birth the next morning after 8am is what I have considered "true" labor.

I had time-able, painful contractions for 5 days with LO. Obviously they spaced out at times and were not strong enough to put me into real labor but I also basically didn't sleep for 5 days (and eventually got a morphine shot to deal with it!).

I don't count that - I count from when my water broke and the contractions began to intensify.

I didn't really have any sort of consistent BH with either kid, and the docs had to break my water, so I say my labors started when I had consistent, noticeable, timeable contractions (not necessarily painful at first). Using that criteria, LO1 labor was like 60 hours and LO2 was 2.5.