How do you judge how long your labour was?

[~ Zarava Flutterby ~]

I was told from 'regular' contractions, DD1 was 9hrs and DD2 was i think 5hrs.
Someone said to count from waters breaking but for me that would be DD1 20mins and DD2 8mins..
No more for me, DP would need to be armed with a catchers mit and some towels

Checked my notes from DD1 and they have it listed as 9hrs 30min.
1st stage being 8:55
2nd 0:25
3rd 0:10

I didn't find out with either of the girls how dialated i was so i guess i can't go by that either?

[Fleur]

No need to apologise here Jas, I for one didn't take offense
Just to clarify though - when I say 4 weeks of pre-labour, it wasn't every day, more like one or two days every few days - which physically was kinder but messed with my head

And for real labour, my waters didn't break until about 10 minutes before she was born, and my first internal I was 9 cm. So I really have nothing to base it on but how I felt ITMS.