My lovely friend had her bub a while ago and she was sharing her birth story with me....she had spontaneous membrane rupture that wasn't followed by contractions - so was booked for induction - which was put off due to the hosptial being busy, twice. She was induced more than 48 hours later and due to infection risk, the staff was reluctant to do many internals (which is total opposite of what some insist and great).
Anyway, induction was mid morning and bub was posterior, she was given excercises, etc in an attempt to turn him but without sucess, but soldiered on as she was really wanting a natural birth.
By 5pm, midwives were advising her that she had a while to go and should consider the epi as she was very tired with no sleep for 2.5days. She agreed. Thing was, she wasn't checked even at that point - which I thought was pretty unusal, I thought a check prior to an epi was standard procedure. Bub was born at 7pm - so she felt she was most likely pretty close and felt like had they checked her, she probably could have held on for a bit longer.

So I was wondering, is this common?