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It was totally different than I thought it would be. I went into it being very anti doctors, nurses, and hospitals (and bitter I couldn't have a home birth), and came out of it realizing that the medical professionals were really on my side! I had to be induced and was so scared of all the interventions it may cause, but I didn't even need any! After 8 hours of back labor I got an epidural (something I swore I would never do) but could still feel a lot, so the pushing went very smooth. I was up and walking within an hour!

My labor was what I expected for the most part. Didn't think I'd have to push for 2 hours, but that's about it!

Mine was a textbook labor - endured pain at home for 14 hours (and first half of it I wasn't sure if I was really in labor - I even told my husband to go to work in the morning). I had an iphone app to keep track of the contractions until they are 5 minutes apart (I don't know what I would have done without the iphone!). Went to the clinic to check and I was 5 cm dilated. Went to the hospital, got epidural, hours later I pushed, and the baby was out. The only thing was I was given pitocin (?) to regulate the contractions which I originally wanted to avoid, and the heart rate of the baby dropped at some point which caused me to panic. It was overall a pretty smooth delivery.

Hearing all the horror stories, I guess I didn't expect mine would be such a smooth delivery!

I think it went pretty much according to plan. I did not have to get induced, I labored at home for as long as possible, and I got an epidural when I got to the hospital. If I didn't have to push for so long, I would have been 100% happy, but all in all it wasn't too bad.

I think I was underestimating how tiring labor is, but otherwise, my birth was pretty easy with DD; with DS, I was hoping for something a little shorter, but it was almost exactly the same as my first!

I have a college friend who had a very textbook birth with her first. She was expecting something similar with her second, but her entire labor (from her water breaking and very first contraction) to birth was only 40 minutes! Her husband delivered their daughter on their bed before the paramedics even had time to arrive. Talk about unexpected!

Honestly I didn't know what to expect. But i defintiely liked my second birth (natural + drugfree ) to my first (induction + epi )

Nope. My labor was completely different from any stories I had ever heard, so I was completely shocked. My contractions never got close together on their own... 3 days into labor, and my contractions were still usually only 10-15 minutes apart. I dilated to a 6 naturally that way before we finally gave in and started on pitocin. I had been planning a natural drugfree birth, but b/c of the long labor I ended up with all of the drugs in the end. At least I avoided a c-section, which I was really scared about!

I was not expecting 30 hours of labour then c-section with my first. The recovery was awful.

With my DD I was not expecting to actually go into labour two days before my scheduled c-section. I was screaming through the contractions, they hurt so bad! (Epi with my first) They wouldn't give me anything for the pain before they took me into surgery.

I was also not expecting such an easy recovery this time! It's been fabulous, only a week of painkillers, and a few days of slight incision pain.