My herbal tea

Now that I am back home, I have resumed the drinking of my "pregnancy tea". However, I am filled with questions. Does it really work? A study done found that Red Raspberry Leaf tea did shorten the second stage of labor (pushing the baby out), but only by about 15 minutes. Are claims that it shortens labor really true? I drank it with Caleb and with Taryn. Both labors were relatively short. I also drank it with Liam, though not as much, and although it seems his labor should have been short, it really wasn't. I was dilated at four cm for days prior to his birth, and I should have had a quick onset labor, but I spent days in "prelabor" or early labor. Even the active, very painful stage lasted 8 or 9 hours. That seems like too long for a fourth baby.       

But then I think of other factors which might have applied. I was a lot older when I had Liam than when I had the others. It had been nearly a decade since I had a baby, maybe it was like having a first baby all over again. Although I used EPO, I inserted it (and took it orally), but didn't use the turkey baster like I did with Taryn (bet you wanted to know that!). Did that make a difference? Did my "self-induction" methods bring about Liam's labor before it was really time, thus lengthening the labor? I don't like hospitals and their controlling ways-did going into an alien environment (biologically speaking) cause me to tense up and slow labor down?

Is it all just game of chance?  Either way, it'll be fun to compare this experience with my previous ones. Well,  fun in that painfully horrifying way.