DD was born 9 months ago but from time to time I have wondered about a couple of things that happened during the course of her birth.

My midwife did an internal when I was 8cm dialated. At this point she broke my waters and stretched my cervix to 10cms. Within a matter of minutes my contractions became so intense that I felt like I had lost control of the birth and with in 10 minutes and 2 pushes DD was born. All up my labour was 3 hours but mostly it is a blur.

Question: Is it normal practice to stretch the cervix? Considering that I went from 4cms to 8 cm in 2.5 hours was it really needed?

I am just thinking that I would have managed the birth better if I was left to progress without intervention.