Long pre-labours

Sometimes I think it would be nice to be able to predict exactly when babies were going to arrive and how long the labour was likely to last so that the mother could have enough support without everyone getting exhausted. I’ve been looking after someone this week who has been having a lot of “false” labour (which feels anything but false to her) and have had two long nights spent with her watching a labour which looked like it was going to progress, only to find that by morning, the contractions dwindled and stopped. Fingers crossed this baby arrives soon!