Hiya,
for those that have given birth with and without an epidural - how did you find the pushing stage with both?
Last time I had gas and air and pethidine but looking back one of them didnt agree with me as I felt so grumpy and really snappy after the birth where as none of my friends felt like this at all. But I felt like I needed some sort of pain relief other than just gas and air.
So this time I am considering an epidural and missing out the pethidine all together (lo was very sleepy and wouldnt breastfeed for a while) but I dont know how I would feel about pushing without feeling anything below the waist?
As I could feel everything so strongly, the pushing stage kind of came naturally and was a bit of release from the pain, but I wonder if with an epidural I wouldnt push as effectively and would just find it really odd.
I had contractions for 4 days with ds and pushed for an hour and a half and really felt like I was loosing it at the very end, so so tired as I hadnt slept for days. And then ds cried all night long for a few days so I didnt really sleep for well over a week and this kind of ruined the first few weeks - therefore an epidural may eliminate that side of things?
