How long did you have to wait for the epidural?

les&jus · October 2009

I am curious, because I had to wait 3 hours, which was way too long. I wanted to labor at home as long as I could stand, and did for 9 hours. I was able to manage the pain. When my contractions started getting closer together and so strong I had to double over, we left for the hospital. By the time I got in the room labor had really kicked in. Call me naive, but I expected the epi maybe 30 minutes to an hour. Turns out they were very busy and I was not on the top of the list. My contractions were so strong and painful my husband had to pretty much slap me on the face because I kept passing out.

How long did you have to wait? I want to know if my wait was typical and if next time I should leave home earlier!

MAtoNC · October 2009

A friend of mine had to wait 3.5 hours because there was one anesthesiologist covering the OR and L&D. There was an emergency c-section and a bunch of other stuff that kept knocking her down the list.

nikilr · October 2009

I only had to wait about a half an hour. They were going to make me wait longer (my sister in law heard the nurse talking to the doctor on the phone), but the anesthesiologist was going home for awhile. So, I got it quickly.

GreenEyedBri · October 2009

About 30 minutes. I would have died if I had to wait 3 hours!!

HopingForOne · October 2009

20 minutes.

What time of day/week did you deliver?

At our hospital, it's usually faster to get one if you deliver during the day, when there are more anesthesiologist on duty. Usually you have a longer wait in the evening and weekends.

That said, I delivered on a Saturday.

electricdoctor83 · October 2009

I walked for over 5 hours during labor before I got my epi (a little over 3 of those hours where walking the halls of the hospital).

When I finally decided I wanted the epi the wait was like 15 minutes, this was on a Saturday early early morning.

tanya8 · October 2009

I was induced, and was the first to arrive for the day's inductions (I think there was only one other person told to arrive at the same time as me). It was a slow day, so I only had to wait 15-30 minutes. I could've held out longer, but I figured that if I was only 4 cm dilated and having horrible contrax 1.5 mins apart, that I had better just ask for them early enough that I could sit still for the epi.

AshlynsMom · October 2009

Once I decided I wanted one, I was hooked up and drugged up in less than half an hour. And asleep (the best part!) almost immediately. But I was also vomitting with every.single.contraction (I was induced and apparently that's not all that uncommon) and I think the nurses were tired of dealing with that, so they may have tried to hurry things along.

I gave birth on the Tuesday after a Monday holiday and got the epi around lunchtime.

How long did you have to wait for the epidural?

Re: How long did you have to wait for the epidural?

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