Oh and the shortcut from it was this - forget any hangups about natural birth being "better" or medicated birth being "wrong" - there is no wrong answer, it's about what you feel more comfortable, or less anxious about.
It's kind of a trade off really between muscle type pain, out of control feelings, general overwhelming sensations, and the other kind of management which is more like a small injection, monitoring where you can feel more controlled but also more restricted, and people doing things to you.
For me I feel far more anxious about medical things, injections, being restricted/tied down, people doing things to me than I do about the kind of pain involved in birth. For other people it might be different - most of us would get pain medication if we went to the dentist. (I hate needles so much, sometimes I do dentist things without them!) And if I need a c-section for whatever reason, then nope, they can definitely stick a needle in me before they cut me open and put their hands into my womb, but for normal birth - even the mild medical stuff bothers me more than the thought of the birth itself.
So my approach is to plan for a totally non medical birth because I know that if I go in thinking "I might get an epidural" then my thoughts will be consumed with anxiety about that rather than relaxing and concentrating on my coping mechanisms. I know I tend to cope much better with things happening just as they happen, rather than ruminating and worrying about it in advance, so I'm not too worried about needing emergency intervention - I just need to sort of trick my brain into believing that there's a good chance I can avoid any of that stuff.
If you're the opposite, then it seems like a no brainer to go for pain relief ASAP. And if you're really not sure or both options sound equally okay or equally terrible, then it's probably helpful to look up general relaxation techniques, and see how you go.