Just for some background, this was my original post :
http://www.mothering.com/community/t/1356561/know-this-is-crazy-but-wwyd
Anyway, as I had mentioned, I tried every method of natural self-induction in the book because I wanted to have the baby before my husband had to go out of state for a week. Wednesday night, we were talking and enjoying eachothers company and he mentioned how it could still work out very well if the baby ended up coming on thursday, which I agreed with. I then told him that I was ready to 'let go' and just let whatever happens happens BUT before I did that I wanted to try ONE last thing, something I had already tried and then swore I would never do again but the only thing that seemed to stir things up a bit, the dreaded castor oil induction (again! what was I thinking). If that didn't work, I swore I would give up on trying to get myself to go and just let things happen by itself. During the time we were talking, I guess I was distracted enough not to realize I was actually having some contractions SOOOOO...before going to bed, I went to the kitchen, mixed up a 'midwife's cocktail' (castor oil, baking soda, and orange juice) and downed it. AS I was finishing it up, I realized that I was already having regular contractions and then had an 'oh no' moment where I realized I could already be in labor and would now have to contend with the effects of that in a few hours. I'll leave that to your imagination...
My contractions got closer together and very painful throughout the night, eventually the effects of the 'world's dumbest induction attempt' wore off but I had already been in labor so that continued. In the morning, I called the midwife to come over and check me. She told me I was now about 4-5 cm and 95% effaced, the baby was low enough now that she could confirm he was definitely posterior, hence all the back labor I'd been having. She canceled her appointment and instructed me to fill up the birth pool and then get on my hands and knees to get the baby to turn anterior while she ran by her office to get a few things and called her assistant to meet her at my house. After about an hour or so on hands and knees she checked again and the baby had turned anterior, I was now 6 cm and 100% effaced. She told me I was free to get in the birth pool, which, by the way...feels AMAZING. It was seriously a million times better than an epidural. Although I didn't find contractions very painful at all, it still felt very good and basically made me oblivious of anything other than tightening and pressure. After a while though, I started feeling like maybe I felt 'too good' so I opted to get out and walk around a bit to speed things up as I knew I hadn't hit transition yet. Walked around quite a bit, asked her to check me again (still 6 cm but she said I was now stretchy to 
8, she mentioned my bag of water was what was dilating me and we really needed to get the baby's head firmly applied to dilate me itself but she didn't feel comfortable breaking my water.
This is where things basically reached a stand-still. I stopped dilating, my contractions trailed off and became irregular, eventually we got the baby's head down a bit further but it still was not doing its thing. Additionally, my cervix was beginning to have some swelling from all the pressure and such. We discussed breaking my water some more (I was pushing for it, she was against it) and her feelings (having seen similar things before) that while my body was in active labor, the baby wasn't ready to come yet and all of the things I had done to cause myself to go into labor had basically forced things before they were ready. She advised me not to give up since I had so far shown I could clearly dilate AND handle labor and she basically told me to just drink tea, relax, sleep and rest a lot, and take warm baths and showers until things restarted on their own and from there they would likely happen very QUICK. She said it could be a day or it could be that my body holds out for my husband to get back (5 days from today)
And now here I am, at home, walking around 6-8 cm (possibly on the higher side of that now honestly if I were to judge by my instincts) and waiting for things to take their course. I will say that people close to me who knew and were initially supportive of a midwife-attended homebirth have completely flipped, think I am completely insane, have called my husband (before he left) to try and guilt him into forcing me to go to the hospital (where I'd have the baby by the end of the day according to them...I don't doubt I would, just probably through a nice big incision), have insinuated I am going to kill my baby and I might be OK but he won't be, and have now enlisted family friends to call me up and lecture me about the need to go to the hospital or have the midwife break my water. What I just want to ask now is basically, I know this is a bit of an unusual case and have found a few (but very few honestly) mentions of similar situations online and on the forums here, and just want to double check that my instincts to wait ARE right and there is no reason for me to have to go to the hospital just because I am this far progressed and labor has paused for me? I obviously don't want to endanger my baby but at the same time don't see how he would be by this since my water is still intact? At the same time, being that things have stopped for so long, I worry that maybe everything I did kind of (this is going to sound stupid) "broke" my body and that I might not be able to get things going again naturally and maybe I have already put myself on the path to a repeat c-section? My contractions have not been super regular and are not painful but I've had an increased amount yesterday and today and mostly my ribs just feel very sore from the tightening of my uterus and its just making me feel tired and worn out. Any thoughts?
Thanks!
With my second, I chose not to have any cervical checks before labor (and then only one during labor because we suspected an anterior lip) because your dilation means nothing about when you will go into labor. It just stresses people out to know how dilated they are. I sounds like you were having a nice bout of prodromal labor which made a good change in your baby's position, but wasn't true labor. Honestly, most people don't find active labor to be basically painless, with just pressure and tightening (although it's been known to happen). At this point, being 6cm dilated in and of itself is no reason for induction.
Follow Mothering