Epidural? Worth it or not

donnamartingraduates93

MeganPobega said:

No! Never again!

Any reason in particular?

srcr2011

::Lurking:: :-h

For me, it was sooo worth it. I went to 7cm and 80% effaced with nothing. Labor was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. (I am huge weenie when it comes to pain, every one was surprised I made it that long).

However, I knew it was only going to get worse until it finally got better and baby was out. The nurse was checking me and I had a contraction. I almost hit the roof with that contraction while her hand was all up in me. I did not want to experience that or anything similar again. I got the epidural.

It did slow down my labor a little bit, but I was able to relax and even rest for a while. Since I got the epidural "late", I did not have much sensation to push. They had to put me on pitocin (didn't know until after) and I pushed for 2.5 hours (which may or may not be the reason why I did not tear, who knows).

Another reason (the main one) was I heard stories of the "ring of fire". I did not want to experience that. Even with the epidural, I did have some pressure and it did hurt, but I can't imagine going through that with out epidural. I will definitely get it again.

shelbell1028

picklesx said:

shelbell1028 said:

Worth it.

I felt nothing but a brief pinch in my back. With DD it didn't take full effect on my left side. We tried lots of things and it just never took. It was still a relief though. It wore off completely just as I started pushing so I ended up feeling the entire delivery. It was still worth it for the pain free 2-3 hours it gave me.
.

Sounds like we had almost the same exact experience! Mine never took on my left side and wore off right before I started pushing so I felt all that horrendous pressure and pain and felt my kid come out. It was gross and glorious at the same time.

LOL that ring of fire was no freaking joke!

Unknown

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JennBTX2013

Totally worth it. I got to relax and enjoy myself. I dilated much faster because I could relax and the delivery was easy peasy, pushed for 15 mins. Afterwards, feeling came back fairly quickly and I was up moving around just fine. I am totally an advocate for doing whatever possible to have an enjoyable, relaxing experience.

ElizabethSwann

All Hail the Epidural.

klynn0423

100% worth it. The contractions were even worse than I imagined. As soon as I got the epidural life was great.

Ardmhs83

Everybody will have a different opinion about this, however I plan to go without.  Not because I want to say I had a natural delivery and definitely not because I have a high pain threshold, just because I HATED my spinal and how it made me feel.  I had a c/s, so the spinal is a bit different, but I don't want any parts of the meds in my body.  An epidural is also thought to possibly slow down labor too, which could possibly lead to a c/s.  I will try to do anything I can to avoid another c/s.

Lots of moms get epidurals, love them and have zero problems too.  All experiences will be different here.  

topaz7777

I was induced and got my epidural after being in the hospital for about 16 hours.  By then my contractions were very painful and I was incredibly uncomfortable.  Once I had the epidural, I could have taken a nap.  It gave me the chance to labor down and catch my breath before the time came to push.   Now it was not very helpful in the active pushing part of labor because that still hurt like hell, but the hours of agony it saved me were absolutely worth it.

risplace

My first and only was done natural. To me the pros out weighed the cons. Yes, you feel EVERYTHING, but if you really research epidurals (outside of the normal doctors saying "oh no the baby will be fine") you'll find that women who were on qthe epidural for an extended period of time had babies that tended to be more lathargic and didn't score as well on the apgar. That being said, it currently doesn't seem to have lasting damage (although I haven't researched in awhile). As for all the women saying it helps in long drawn out labors, it does I'm sure. But my labor was 51hrs long with 2hrs of pushing and I managed it. I also have a low threshold for pain.