Omg epidural! This is my third baby and i always go as long as i can without it. I also did the demerol shot and it did nothing compared to the epiural. It barly hurt at all. Infact the worst part was when the doctor was feeling my back and pocked me with her nail. But i felt great afterwards. No wossy feeling. I felt like me. i couldnt even tell when i was having contraction. the nurses had to watch the monitor to tell me when to push. And i pushed fine. Took about 20 min.
The only down side i can think of is you have to wait about and hour or so afyer they stop the medication to get up. But who wanta to get up anyway? I was to busy counting fingers and toes to want to get up.

The delivery took about 20 min. The epidural took like 5 min

I had an epi at 10cm with my first to delay my labor since there was no doc available to deliver I pushed for nearly 3 hours after an 8 hour labor.. I just had my 2nd daughter on Thursday in about 4 hours all natural. I pushed twice- once to break my water and not even 3 minutes later to deliver her. To me, if you make it far enough with the contractions the pushing is complete relief. I had the demerol with my 1st and I hated the feeling it gave me- I couldn't concentrate and I swear it made things worse for me.

My recovery is 10 times easier with baby #2 and I haven't had any baby blues at all. I did have PPD after my D&C (missed miscarriage) and also after delivering my first.

I forgot to mention that after the epidural with my third, I have permanent pain-tingling-loss of sensation in my left foot, one of the possible side effects of epidurals, known as parasthesias.

So, my advice would be, if you can, try to go without. If in the end you need one, you can get it upon asking. Be sure to discuss the risks of the procedure before with your doc.

Here is one doctor's thought on the risks of epidurals:
http://www.healing-arts.org/mehl-madrona/mmepidural.htm

i plan on going natural this time. i had an epideral with my last labor and it was hard to tell when to push.

I had one with my youngest and they hit a nerve ending and it was more painful than the contractions. I had intense pain up my arm, shoulder and neck and since the baby was laying on that spot it didn't stop until i pushed him out. Sometimes i get numbing pain in my fingers and hands from it...sucks and never again.

Thanks so much for all the feedback. I still have a long time to decide (March 2012), and I like to be informed.

I do not plan on getting an epidural this time for 2 reasons:

1) I had an epi with my 1st baby and it did NOTHING, I felt everything.. so I figure if I did it once, I can do it again.

2) I plan on having a water birth.

Of course I'm not going to rule it out 100% but I am going to avoid it if I can.

im gonna try for no drugs this time.

im gonna have an epideral if possible

The epidural needle is not bad at all. You can barely feel the needle when they put it in. I would say the only bad thing about was it made my rt leg go totally numb so I couldn't walk for many hrs after I gave birth. I had to have help getting up and down. the epidural took away alot of the pain but once I started pushing it seemed like i could feel all the pain but it wasn't that way with my first son. With him I felt no pain even during the pushing phase but I think its a good idea to get one.

I've had one twice and the only complaint I have is that with my second one the dude must not have gotten it in right because the only place I felt it was in my right leg. It went completely numb, but I still felt pain everywhere else. So I may as well have not had one at all.

No side effects, though, and it didn't slow my labor down with either birth. It didn't hurt my ability to push, either.

i have been through 5 viginal deliverys with nothing but gas and air and i personally would go for that ever time than letting anyone near me with a big needle lol

I have had 2 vaginal deliveries. The first I got an epidural right away because I was scared.
The second I was doing great without one until I started pitocin and the pain was excruciating! I had to get an epidural but then delivered 45 minutes later.
This time I will try for no epidural again, but its goes to say that usually if you have a plan for labor and delivery it goes the exact opposite. So just go with the flow and do whatever you need to do to have a healthy baby because that's all that matters right?

Tawny2nat,
I wish gas was available in the USA during labor and delivery! It is very uncommon here for anything other than dental work.

RSCMom,
I'm having a water birth too!