I kinda "winged it," LOL. Since I'd had a couple of babies already, I could tell I was approximately 1 cm for a while. When I had been having contractions for a couple of hours, I checked myself, just to see if I could discern a difference, and I could -- I guessed about 4 cm with a bulging bag of waters. (That was based on the fact that I had checked myself in early labor with my second baby, just out of curiosity, and then the MW had confirmed about 4 cm a little while later.) Plus my labor pattern matched what I knew to be about 4 cm from my previous births. Then a while later, I checked again, just out of curiosity, and while I couldn't tell how dilated I was, I could tell it was more than it had been earlier, still with the bulging bag of waters. Once my water broke, I did try checking again, because with my second baby, I had been almost completely dilated before my water broke, and then when it did, my cervix closed up several cm, and it was a couple more hours before I was fully dilated, so I wanted to see if that had happened again. I couldn't tell, though, this time. However, it didn't matter -- I never had someone tell me that I was 10 cm and could push this time; I just had a couple of contractions after my water broke that ended in small pushes (not sure if they were voluntary or not), and then I felt the unmistakable feeling of the baby crowning, and he was born a couple of minutes later, less than 20 minutes after my water broke. So obviously I was complete, or at whatever point I needed to be at for him to be birthed. Something told me to push a bit with those contractions, hoping to bring the baby (who still felt really high after my water broke) down a bit, and then it all happened really fast. Listening to your instincts is a good, good thing!
(I have read that 10 cm is somewhat subjective. First of all, different people may guess 10 cm slightly differently, especially if their finger size differs. Second, I have also read that tiny/premature babies don't necessarily need a full 10 cm, and some babies need more than 10. The latter makes sense to me -- my first two babies had heads bigger than 14" and one came out posterior, so the largest diameter very well may have been bigger than 10 cm. So with my UC, I figured I'd push when I just could not help it anymore, and really, that's what happened.)
But during labor it has been helpful for me, to have an idea of when I'm approaching transition because of my mental preparations. It's also been helpful while pregnant because I tend to have premature labor to know if it's actually affecting my cervix or not. So when I was 14 weeks and started having contractions, dh could check to see if it was a 'flat on your back' type of bedrest or move around and take care of the kids type of bedrest.
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