Intellectually, I think most prospective parents... nay - thinking people - understand that the Hollywood representation of labor and delivery is total BS.
I can confirm that your suspicions on that score are accurate.
In film and television, labor almost always begins with the woman's water breaking suddenly, without warning, and generally in an inconvenient location or in the midst of a dramatic conversation. Usually, by the time the pregnant woman arrives at the hospital, the baby's arrival is imminent.
In reality, every pregnancy, and consequently every delivery, is unique in its particulars. Probably there have been a handful of Hollywood-esque deliveries in the history of modern obstetrics, but most are a little more drawn out, a whole lot messier, and much less overacted.
Our story began on Thursday night, a full three days before Olivia was actually born. My wife began having contractions around 9:30, too sporadic at that point to consider going to the hospital, but strong enough to make us believe this could be the real deal if they got close enough together.
Most OBs and midwives will tell you not to come to the hospital until contractions are coming at least every five minutes, and have been for a couple of hours. Some may want them even closer in time. What these professionals really aren't so good at conveying, especially to first time mothers, is how to tell when real labor has begun. Not all contractions are created equal, and most women in late stage pregnancy will experience Braxton-Hicks contractions, which generally aren't very painful (relatively speaking). If those go on for, say, ten hours at five minutes apart, even a woman who suspects she is not in active labor will probably get annoyed enough to call her practitioner and try and find out what the deal is. And if the practitioner's answering service has instructed its people to tell every woman who says the word "contraction" to come on to the hospital, the woman may end up sitting in a hospital room for six hours or so unnecessarily. I'm not bitter towards the answering service at all.
What we learned from this experience (a week before our Thursday night contractions started) is that labor contractions should be strong enough that the woman cannot talk or walk through them. Besides the obvious problems with this guideline - that it is completely subjective and every woman has a different threshold for pain - it turned out not to be entirely true when real contractions started on Thursday, and continued into Friday and Saturday. While it became increasingly unpleasant to walk or talk through those contractions, it could be done. It was a little harder for my wife, but she managed too. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
By Friday morning, it looked like active labor was likely at any time. The sporadic contractions were becoming more regular, though still too spread out to head to the hospital. It was not until late Friday night that they were consistently five minutes apart and we headed out to the hospital. We were assessed, and ultimately the hospital staff determined that labor was not progressing. Even though the contractions never stopped. This is apparently known as prodromal labor - labor like symptoms that don't progress to the birth of a baby. And when they don't stop at all, they suck. We were sent home, and the contractions continued unabated, strengthening throughout the day Saturday. From Thursday night until Sunday morning, my wife might have gotten a total of three hours of sleep. I wasn't much better off, but I wasn't dealing with stomach wrenching cramps at ten minute intervals, so I think I was still in the better position.
By Sunday morning (and I mean early Sunday morning) it was clear that something had to give. We headed back to the hospital for the third time in a week, and I will admit I was afraid they were going to send us home yet again. Mostly, that idea was just disheartening. We've heard some first time mothers end up in the hospital dozens of times with false labor, pre-labor, or whatever else pregnancy can throw their way, so I guess a false start or two can be forgiven, but when you are entering your third day with no sleep (and you don't have an outside baby to account for that lack of sleep) the prospect just makes you tired.
As it turned out, my concerns were unwarranted. Sunday was it. We arrived around 5:30 a.m. and were whisked to a labor room by 6:30 a.m. I'll spare the details - very few of you would actually have any interest, and those who do can ask my wife in person. The reader's digest version involved the best epidural ever, a lot of raspberry popsicles, several hours of Sportcenter (my wife is awesome), and a mere 10 hours of waiting-and pushing-beyond what had already been endured.
And then there was Olivia. 7 pounds, 6 ounces, and 20 1/2 inches of born contrariness. And she is everything we imagined she would be.
A brief epilogue. I will never in a million years compare the male experience of labor and delivery to the woman's, but I was completely unprepared for the physical toll the process would take on me. There is more adrenaline, tension, fear, and exhilaration in a brief period of time than any human body is meant to take. I crashed harder the night my daughter was born than I have in a long, long time.
My wife stayed up and fed our daughter. She is way tougher than me.
