Hellobee Boards

Who knows??!
I time it from when I woke with contractions, they were regular and really hurt. I had been in early labour before going to bed, more crampy and irregular.

Honestly, some women just like to bignote their experience. I was in labour for 1000 hours with just an asprin for pain relief. Whatever.

Forgot! Mine was 15 hours, fairly average I would imagine.

There is prodromal labor, early labor, active labor; people seem to talk about all three. My chart had me in early labor for 9.5 hours before I was in active labor, but I had been having contractions for days before that. I think most people either count from the time you are in the hospital, or the time your contractions are really painful. Everyone's experience is so different!

I always measure from the time of contractions. I feel like labor is your body working to get the baby out, and it starts doing that by having contractions.

I was induced and asked my nurse after LO how long I had actually been in labor. She told me that although I started getting pitocin at about 8AM, I didn't start labor until around 12PM when my water was broken and the contractions really started coming, LO was born at 4:54PM. So, by the nurse's calculation I was only in labor for about 5 hours not 8 as I thought.

Our midwife said that you don't "qualify" until you are 3cm with regular contractions. My waters broke 40.5 hours before LO arrived, but active labor was only about 16 hours because my contractions took a while to get going steadily.