I was terrified my first pregnancy, just dreading the pain of birth, I also had an epidural after about 5 hours of hard labor, it relieved my pain for about a half an hour and then wore off, once I started pushing the contractions didn’t hurt as bad but when the baby’s head passes through it is called the ring of fire, it literally feels like a burning sensation…it is painful but you are so focused on meeting your baby and those final pushes that it takes away from it…also the moment you give birth it’s like you forget the pain, you remember that it hurt really bad but you cannot make yourself remember the feeling of pain no matter how hard you try…so take comfort in that…once you have your baby in your arms you would go through it a million more times with no pain medicine just for that one moment…just don’t sweat it you will do fine…Love Meg