tell me YOUR stories! (and help me choose)

[mumof2xox]

could people please post their stories on pain relief during birth that WASNT epidural ?

I'm 27 weeks pregnant with my 2nd and I want to try a different pain relief!

t.i.a

I was refused pain relief because they didn't believe me when I said labour was progressing quickly. I wouldn't recommend it!!

Dd1 Tens to start with. Then I had pethidine. Gave me hallucinations too. Horrible. Then gas and air.
Ds2 was a home birth in a birthing pool. gas and air right at the end.
Ds3 was a home birth and I had no pain relief. Not in a birthing pool.

ds2 and 3 were the "nicest" births and where I felt most in control and most comfortable.

Oh ds1 was an induction and ended up with an epidural. I had pethidine earlier on with him but it made me sick.

Another one here who laboured quickly - 3 hours with my first baby.
I tried gas and air, but it made me feel really sick, so I stopped with that. I think I sort of forgot it was there as I'd only had a few puffs of it. Then the next thing I knew, I was pushing! Midwife kept saying "use your gas", but I decided I needed to be focussed on the task in hand, and not spaced out!
I did accept all the drugs going while I was on the post-natal ward though!

I laboured very quickly on G&A when I arrived in hospital at 4cm which made me vomit and then had diamorphine from 6cms (super fast delivery of 3 hours start to finish) which made me sleep between contractions but didn't actually do much else!

The end hurt and I wished I had an epidural but there wasn't time by the time I couldn't manage on diamorphine.

Next time I would consider an epidural much earlier!

Wow thank you for the responses!!! You've all helped so much in my decision making

I had diamorphine with ds1 as was induced so they came kind of quick and intense. Hated it, made me sick and out of it, they wouldn't let me get off of the bed etc.

Ds2 they gave me half a shot of diamorphine to try let me get some rest, was stuck on 3cm for absolutely ages with pains that were every 2 mins and was excruciating. When ds finally did make an appearance it turned out he was back to back and quite a difference bigger than my ds1. That didn't really seem to do much.

Ds3- I tried a tens machine for the first time ever and absolutely loved it. I lasted on that until 9cm and had gas and air for the remaining 20 mins. Absolutely loved that labour and birth.

Ds4- back to back but a 34 weeker so wasn't huge. Again I had tens machine. Bought my own and used it right until the end, had abit of gas and air whilst I began pushing as I was tensing up, my waters still hadn't gone and I found the feeling very strange. So midwife gave me the gas and air to 'relax' it did the trick.

Pregnant with baby five now, and plan to buy my own tens again :)

had a very long labour, back to back baby but I didn't have back pain, so the position didn't get picked up. at home, I used paracetomol, Lazy Daisy breathing and positions and TENS.

In hospital, carried on with breathing and positions, the TENS machine just stayed on but I sort of forgot about it after a while. I only remembered it was still there buzzing away when the midwife mentioned I might be more comfortable without it hanging round my neck!!

my labour stalled for hours at 5cm, had gas & air after being in hospital for about 5 or 6 hours. was great.
later on, had diamorphine and hated it. would never have it again. it just made me pass out, I've lost a good couple of hours where I was just so out of it that it just held my labour up even more. I have big chunks of memory loss from when I came round a bit.

looking back, I should have stuck with the g&a, I was managing ok. I had been put on the syntocinon drip and I was panicking that I wouldn't be able to cope, so asked for the diamorphine. if I am in that position again, I will carry on with g&a for longer and then go for an epidural if I need it.
in the end, I had a spinal for a failed ventouse and subsequent emcs