air first births and then painful disasters with the second and vice versa. My friend's mother had one birth with nothing, not even gas and air, epidural with the second, nothing with the third and back to epidural with the fourth. Biggest thing is not to feel lie you are a failure for not doing it to the *plan*. Never quite sure why the fact something is *natural* means you are supposed to embrace the pain. Having period pain is *natural* but I'm sure as hell grabbing the paracetamol ASAP. I expect to catch a lot of flak for my thoughts and experience, but I too, along with all in my NCT group, fell prey to the "nothing is worse than a medicalized birth/ caesarian" propaganda. Guess what? Of the first four of us up in a group of about 12, 4 ended up with caesarians, myself included. I cannot speak for the three others, but I went in with every technique for pain relief known, and in short order found the pain absolutely unbearable. I will go to my grave singing the praises of good anesthesia because I will remember, and be grateful, for the blessed relief the epidural gave. As one of my best friends, who is an ob-gyn, with three children of her own, pointed out to me at the time: "there are no flowers and balloons at the end for having done it the "natural" way". And in most cases save this, if you're in bad