>I had my daughter in the hospital but without any pain meds. I believed it would be best for my daughter. It was a very long and painful night. I highly recommend pain meds (the epidural like my best friend got when she gave birth) to anyone about to have a baby :o)

I had problems when Solomon was born and ended up heavily medicated. With Nathaniel, things went much more smoothly, but the contractions were very strong. So when I got to 5cm, I asked for an epidural (they wouldn't do it before that). The anesthesiologist showed up 20 minutes later, by which point I was 8 cm and they wouldn't give me an epidural. He was born less than an hour later. All told, from when I woke up in labor to delivery was less than 5 hours.

Tamar