Personally I don't regret having an epidural one bit. I know I have a low pain threshold, I was tired and 10 days overdue so when my waters broke and after 6 hours I was still only 1cm, they wanted me on the drip to speed things up. My relatives that have used pethadine have had out-of-body experiences and the idea of gas freaked me out, so epidural was definitely the way to go for me.

I was fortunate, the local was only a small pinch and although the anaethesiologist fed the epidural in crookedly the first time, she removed it and put it back in place fine the second time. It worked fantastically and was a godsend for me. I could still feel the contractions and tightening so I didn't need them to tell me when they were coming...in fact in the end the midwife was asking me to tell her when I felt the next contraction coming along.

It's all about deciding what YOU want for a birth hon. It was the right way for me to go, but as others have pointed out, there are tons of other pain relief options that might work for you too.