Hi there

Like Oshani said, every situation is different. I had an epi basically because I wanted to press the pause button! I'd had a very long pre-labour and had 7 hours sleep in three days so for me it wasn't the pain so much as the length of the labour that was the killer - I was knackered. My baby was also posterior so it was always going to be slow.

I had mine at about 7cm. That meant I could rest for a couple of hours before I was dilated enough to push. The epi took all the pain away and I felt fantastic. Like I said, I just REALLY wanted a break from pain after three days. And infact, those two hours were the only pain-free hours I had in seven months because I'd also been suffering from an unstable pelvis.

I couldn't really feel much with the pushing - did it for 2.5 hours and nothing happening. I also couldn't move into better positions so was doing the flat on the back in bed business which is not optimal for getting the baby out but as your legs are numb you can't really do anything else.

But I knew all that before I had the epidural and I'd weighed up the pros and cons.

In the end, I had a forceps delivery.

Given the same set of circumstances, I'd do exactly the same.

Just make sure you know all the pros and cons - if you have an epidural you are much more likely to have other interventions - ventouse, forceps, caesarean because it's harder to push the baby out naturally. And it depends on your obstetrician - some private obs seem more reluctant these days to use forceps and will send you off for a ceasar - my midwives told me lots of the other obs would only have 'let me' push for 20 mins, then told me the baby was stuck and I had to have a caesar. My ob is very much vaginal birth where possible so I was lucky there.

And remember that it's not always about the pain, it's about the length of the labour too AND that's not something you can predict or really prepare for.