I've been thinking about "pain management"

As the birth draws near, I have been thinking about pain associated with birthing.

With Elder, I got demerol, which I liked because it took the edge off, but I could still feel the contractions and I knew what was going on. It did make me sleepy but they managed to time the doses so that it all wore off by the time I had to push. It also allowed me to get some sleep between contractions.

When Younger was born, they stopped the demerol, and offered me an epidural early on. I told them I'd wait and see. By the time I wanted the epidural, the anesthesiologist was unavailable to give it to me. So I had no pain relief with younger, and I didn't have any way of hypnotising myself against the pain. That's not totally true - near the end they gave me nitrous gas(laughing gas) which did nothing for me.

Now, with the lad, I have the option of an epidural, morphine, nitrous gas, or nothing. They don't offer demerol anymore.

My major concern with the epidural is that I will move, and instead of the epidural space, the anesthesiologist hits the transdural, and at best I get a four day migraine headache. But there is less than a 1% chance of that.

The morphine is a narcotic, and my concern is the doses not being properly timed and the lad and I being too sleepy to push when the time comes.

And as stated earlier nitrous gas does nothing for me.

But, I find at times that when I pray I can put myself into a trance like state. Usually I can only do it for a few minutes and only with a short prayer or ejaculation, usually the Jesus Prayer:
O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

But labour and delivery lasts more than a few minutes, so although I will be praying I am not good enough to put myself into a continual or continuous trance.

Bear says that if it were him he'd go for the epidural. I love him.