Checking your own cervix - Page 2

[Peppamint]

Hmm, good question. My midwife stayed even though she didn't check me for at least an hour or two (we knew I was already 4cm though). When she did check me I had progressed to 8cm.

I'm curious to see answers. At this point, I'm curious to have her confirm my dialation but I really don't think it's necessary and it's definitely a moot point for me and not at all an indicator of when labor will begin.

[cottonwood]

Question is, how do you convince your midwife that you are close enough that she needs to stay? I'm going to ask this at today's appt but just curious on what everyone else's experiences are. Did the midwife insist on an exam? If you were able to turn them down and had a looooooooong labor afterwards, was the midwife irritated that she had to stick around without really knowing whether it was "worth her while?"

Generally speaking, there's not much the midwife can do in early labor, and it's sensible for her to save her energy for active labor. Also, having a midwife around too early can make the thing tend to drag on longer than it would otherwise because there is then a tendency to focus on her socially rather than on going within.

That said, given that you are paying her to attend you in labor I would think that she should be happy to attend you whenever you feel you need her and not just when the birth is imminent!

With my first birth, when I had been having contractions for a couple of days and hadn't begun to dilate yet, she came over when contractions were 4 minutes apart to "help things along". (Something I regret, but that's another story.) She was there about eight hours before I began to dilate, and another four hours until the birth.

At the time I thought it was necessary for her to check my dilation. When I found it wasn't, and considered how intrusive it was and how inhibited and tense it made me and that it can introduce infection, and because it was so demoralizing (and counterproductive) to feel I had been working so hard only to be told I was only at a 0 or a 4, I decided never to have a VE in pregnancy or birth again.

So with my second, I choose a midwife who was fine with that. She came over when I began to focus so intently on my contractions that I was acting kind of "spacey" and couldn't hold a regular conversation. I was giving her one-word answers and having trouble even coming up with that. The baby was born about two hours later.