Yes, I had a student doula last time. I realise that coping with the pain is MOSTLY a mental thing! And peth can go either way I guess, it can give you a mental rest between contractions, or it can hinder your ability to concentrate and focus and thus the pain management is worse. I just don't know if peth is worth it. Peth also interacts with SSRI's so I don't know if I can use it anyway. So it seems that there is really no middle ground, it's either natural methods plus gas, or bed bound with an epi? Yikes. Last time, in a better mental state, I got to the 48 hour mark before I got the epi and I was flippin proud of that, it was an endurance marathon! At the time, I felt like if I had a "normal" 6-12 hour labour I might have coped fine, so who knows this might all be theory for nothing.