So THAT'S the problem

As I was playing around on my computer I found a forum where a woman was pregnant with her second child and had asked a question that was answered by a doctor. She was 5 cm dilated (yep, that's me too), 50% effaced (I was there last week, I forgot to ask yesterday if this had moved any), and wondered if that was normal. This is part of the response she received:

It's true that lots of women walk around with 50% effacement, but perhaps not at 5 cm. As you probably know, there are two phases of labor. The latent and the active. The latent phase is from zero to 4 cm dilation can take anywhere from several hours to couple of weeks. However, once a woman's cervix becomes dilated to 5 cm she is considered in the active phase of labor. In the active phase we expect, that the cervix will continue to dilate a rate of 1 cm per hour. Sometimes women "fall off the labor curve." that means that they are not progressing at a rate of 1 cm per hour.

It seems I've fallen off the labor curve. Shoot. How do I get back on?

Everything else is going well. Keep your fingers crossed that this little girl will make an appearance soon.