Hi! 
I was just wondering what your experience(s) are with epidurals?
Did it work for you? Did you feel any pain at all?
I'm going to have my second baby in early August and I'm planning to have an epidural. The first time I gave birth I was induced so, they gave me the epidural right away. It didn't work properly though. One leg was sort of numb, the other one wasn't. During labor I felt fine though. I could feel the contractions but it wasn't really painful. After a while I felt a change in my contractions and felt the urge to push. So, I asked the nurse to check me and it turned out I was fully dilated. I was kinda shocked when the nurse told me that she'll turn off the epidural during the pushing until after I gave birth as otherwise I wouldn't know when to push. I kinda thought to myself that that's a bit weird as I already felt the urge to push / contractions even with the epidural in place. So, I knew when to push even before she turned off the epidural. After it was turned off, the pain became really bad really fast. Whatever pain relief I had before was completely gone within a matter of minutes after they stopped the epi. It was a horrible experience for me as I was 'promised' that I wouldn't feel any pain. Yeah, right!! I ended up pushing for one hour. When my son was crowning it hurt so bad. It felt like everything's on fire down there. My son 's head was relatively big and to make matters worse he came out looking sideways. So, that put a lot more stress on my tissue than it normally would have and resulted in lots of severe tears inside and of course outside. It really wasn't a pleasant experience for me at all. After I gave birth they turned on the epidural again for the stitching. But it didn't have any effect anymore at all so, I begged them to inject some anesthetics before continuing to stitch me up.
I gave birth at KKH btw. I was told it's standard practice to turn off the epidural once women are fully dilated and ready to push. However, none of my friends, local and overseas, who have had epidural had them turned off before they gave birth.
For my second birth I will insist for the epi to NOT be turned off until everything is over!!
For those of you who also gave birth at KKH, how was your experience?
And for those of you who had epidurals in other hospitals, did they turn it off as well?
I was just wondering what your experience(s) are with epidurals?
Did it work for you? Did you feel any pain at all?
I'm going to have my second baby in early August and I'm planning to have an epidural. The first time I gave birth I was induced so, they gave me the epidural right away. It didn't work properly though. One leg was sort of numb, the other one wasn't. During labor I felt fine though. I could feel the contractions but it wasn't really painful. After a while I felt a change in my contractions and felt the urge to push. So, I asked the nurse to check me and it turned out I was fully dilated. I was kinda shocked when the nurse told me that she'll turn off the epidural during the pushing until after I gave birth as otherwise I wouldn't know when to push. I kinda thought to myself that that's a bit weird as I already felt the urge to push / contractions even with the epidural in place. So, I knew when to push even before she turned off the epidural. After it was turned off, the pain became really bad really fast. Whatever pain relief I had before was completely gone within a matter of minutes after they stopped the epi. It was a horrible experience for me as I was 'promised' that I wouldn't feel any pain. Yeah, right!! I ended up pushing for one hour. When my son was crowning it hurt so bad. It felt like everything's on fire down there. My son 's head was relatively big and to make matters worse he came out looking sideways. So, that put a lot more stress on my tissue than it normally would have and resulted in lots of severe tears inside and of course outside. It really wasn't a pleasant experience for me at all. After I gave birth they turned on the epidural again for the stitching. But it didn't have any effect anymore at all so, I begged them to inject some anesthetics before continuing to stitch me up.
I gave birth at KKH btw. I was told it's standard practice to turn off the epidural once women are fully dilated and ready to push. However, none of my friends, local and overseas, who have had epidural had them turned off before they gave birth.
For my second birth I will insist for the epi to NOT be turned off until everything is over!!
For those of you who also gave birth at KKH, how was your experience?
And for those of you who had epidurals in other hospitals, did they turn it off as well?
