Birth 1 - 39+1; All the drugs going, followed by EMCS
Birth 2 - 37+1; Unplanned VBAC [ELCS booked in for 39 weeks] with G&A, spot of local for the post forceps internal stitching.
Two back to back labours [which no sodding midwife mentioned until afterwards] and two "stuck" children. 'Twas speculated that I have a small pelvis in my notes from DC1.
So - the drugs. I had of course post NCT course planned to have DC naturally in the gentle manner of a ping pong ball delivery, drugs as a last resort but it was not to be. Hindsight is wonderful and I don't give a fiddlers elbow now but it really bothered my after my first labour.
Paracetamol and a warm bath at home does actually help matters along. Two words of warning - when you get out of the bath having reached the magic minute combination when you can head to the hospital you obviously lose that pain relief. It can be a little panic inducing so if it all looks good, head to the hospital a little before depending on distance. The second is I was using my iphone to time contractions and the battery died at 2am. Had to get out of the blinking bath and find an extension cable [DH asleep as was driving me mad] before settling back in.
If there's a lull, and you doze a little you can get a little cold in the bath.
Candles at the ready instead of the drone of the bathroom extractor fan.
Tens machine. DH thought they were a bit bollocks so slapped the pads on, turned it up to max, pressed boost and gave it some welly. I shot across the room in the manner of a speeding penguin from a cannon and he barely survived the experience. He gave it away to a mate with a sports injury before I could could reciprocate on his testicles so I didn't try it with DC2. Certainly couldn't deal with it after my Einstein hair moment.
Waters broke at 5am, didn't sleep until about 1-2pm the next day when I was still only 6cms, on my knees and cross-eyed with tiredness and a kindly midwife suggested I have some and have a snooze for a bit. Worked like a charm but unfortunately I was still at 6cms and not the magic 10cms when I awoke 3-4 hrs later. 
Contracting every minute throughout but didn't feel a thing. Bliss. An NCT friend vommed for England when she had some though and didn't sleep a wink.
Same kindly midwife suggested I "might like to consider an epidural" when I came around as decision was made then to add some inducing drugs to the mix and see if I could progress. I think that was about 4-6pm. Drugs were gradually ramped up to the max dose but dilation had stalled and the epidural had worn off by 3.30. Failure to Progress was called and DC1 born by CS at 4.20am. Baby fine - no issues at any point. I felt fully recovered at 4 weeks.
Things moved much faster with DC2 and as I had agreed to continuous monitoring as a principle I headed to hospital once waters were gone with DC2 hoping my ELCS could be brought forward. Got in line while emergency cases were dealt with and was almost fully dilated on just G&A by the time the theatre was free so I carried on with the notion that I would do it "properly" this time and have a speedy recovery and all that jazz. DC2 not born until a full 4 hrs later, and I took 12 weeks to be able to sit down/walk normally due to internal bruising. DH reckons that DC2 was also stuck and only that DC2 was smaller, that she was delivered "naturally".
I found the pain manageable with just G&A but my two DC's were 7lbs 6 and 6lbs 6. Full respect to anyone delivering a 8lber and above. That has got to smart more.
In theory the pethedine should have left my system in time to push had I dilated. No idea what effect inducing drugs have on a baby. 5 yrs ago now. DC1 was very dopey, a poor feeder and lost a lot of weight. My milk took 5 full days to come in by which time she was on formula and BF and it was all terribly fraught.
In theory DC2 should have been much better but maybe due to her size, she was equally rubbish and I had to express all her feeds for 12 weeks.
The most important drugs are the ones you get when you leave hospital!!