Just to add my birth experience, I was hoping to do it without an epidural, here they don't offer water births - except privatly - and no gas and air either so it's kind of all or nothing.
I was doing ok with the contractions until they broke my waters, when it suddenly became much more painful. They then told me I had to decide on the epidural as if I became more dilated it wouldn't be possible and I went for it like a shot. Soon after I was walking up and down the corridor grinning from ear to ear! From then on my recollection is a bit hazy tbh, they gave me a second dose at some point but when it came time to push I couldn't really feel the contractions and they had to tell me when. Probably I could've done with a lower dose.
Anyway all was fine in the end, it was a still a great experience I wouldn't mind repeating, however, I am going to be talking to my gynae about it, hopefully next week, and how maybe it could've been done differently, so me and DH are better prepared and more in control this time. I'm thinking about talking to an independent midwife about it too (first consultation is free!) to get another opinion, but it would be quite alot of money to go that route.
I think the whole birth thing is something you obsess about beforehand but in the end, if you both come through ok it doesn't actually matter how they got there!