My first was 36 hours of labour, second 20 minutes and my third was about 2.5 hours of active labour. She was posterior throughout and was born that way so very ouchy. Despite that though I found the contractions were nowhere near as strong as DD2's, and it wasn't until she was literally one contraction off crowning that I really thought we were even getting anywhere.

I had been to hospital twice with DD3, absolutely convinced I was in labour. She kept me guessing with a whole heap of false labour and each time the midwives told me the same as the other ladies have said - #3 is the wildcard and your previous births meant little in guessing how #3 would go.