It happened to me with DD2. I was scheduled to have a c/section at 6am and woke up in labour at 2am. It all happened very quickly. I got out of bed with my first contraction and tried to figure out if this was it or not. 10 mins later, my second contraction hit and 10 mins later a third. I didn't know what to do because the contractions seemed quite a distance apart but I was meant to be fasting for surgery so I didn't want to take panadol. DH suggested I have a shower and see if that eased the pain. I got in the shower and my contractions started coming on top of each other. I got out of the shower, convinced I was still in the early stages and called birth suite. They said to come in and they would check things out.

We arrived at birth suite 45 mins after the beginning of my labour and discovered that I was 9cm dilated. Pretty much all hell broke lose at that point. They would not let me deliver naturally because DD2 was a footling breech. People came from everywhere to do all sorts of things to me - the main thing was a injection straight into my tummy to stop my labour - it did stop it (though lead to a couple of issues later on with my uterus not shrinking properly because it would not contract by itself for a few hours after surgery so I was hooked up to a drip with a lot of syntocin pumping through it for a few hours after my surgery, ouchie!). My waters hadn't broken yet and I was told to lie completely still on the bed because if they broke I would need a GA. They gave me an ultrasound to check on the position of the baby, shaved my tummy etc, dressed me in a gown for surgery, gave me some awful drink and took me in for an emergency c/section. It was another hour after I got to hospital until they had DD2 out, but they managed it.

I think it was a bit more stressful because it was an emergency c/section rather than planned - both emotionally and physically - but it all worked out in the end.