I wanted a home water birth with my first and while I experienced all of labour (including an 8hr second stage, all the pushing in the world, every intervention going after a blue light transfer to hospital), I still had an emcs.
In the years between dc1 and dc2, I felt robbed of a natural experience. I wanted to do the thing mother nature designed me for. I wanted that rush of endorphins, the birth story, the knowing that I pushed a baby out of me. That 'I did it!' I tried for a vbac with dc2. It went the same way. I had another emcs after 38hrs.
Am I still sad and hankering after that labour and delivery? Not really. There's still a part of me that is curious. But there's still a part of me that wonders what would have happened if I ran off to France with Tom instead of doing my A levels. Tom, btw is married to a beautiful French lady and they have beautiful half French children and a beautiful house in French France. 
The one thing I took away from my birthing experiences - in the end - was that I had my babies and I had them from my body. Those experiences were my own. My pelvis, my babies with their peculiarities and idiosyncrasies and those events on those particular days. I didn't have somebody else's babies or a different shaped pelvis and all I could do, all any of us could ever do is do what we can with what we have. I think being a mother taught me that. When my child comes to me, sad because they can't come first in a race on sports day, I see it as my job to teach them that they can only do what they can with the body nature gave them. They can be proud of that body, of the wonderful things it does and their own little set of skills and strengths. I can't teach them how to be somebody else but I can champion and encourage the people they are. You have the same ability and I see it as a good thing that you get to model it for them. Show them that you can take the circumstances handed to you and make them positive. Because positivity in birth doesn't come from the method. It truly doesn't. It comes from feeling supported, loved and empowered. You can have an elective cs with choices. You can have your music, you can have the screens lowered, your partner can watch, you can have skin to skin. You can seize it for no more and no less than what it was; the day you met your baby.
I know enough women who've laboured and delivered to know that on paper and in reality are two different things. A woman who had a textbook delivery on paper can feel frightened and lost and unsupported and horribly traumatised. A woman having an elcs can have a wonderful team around her, she can laugh and smile and feel proud of her body for growing this baby and for the team next to her who helps it into the world and into her waiting arms.
I refuse to look back at the day I gave birth (I did give birth btw) and feel that it was a poor cousin to the vaginal delivery I could have had. When I tell my dc about the day I met them and held their fragile little bodies, I tell them with pride and joy because it was a perfect meeting of nature and science and it allowed me to have them.
I remain curious. I probably always will but I don't regret it. I embrace it.
If your body and your baby aren't destined for normal delivery then you can feel sad for it. You can let that door close. It doesn't mean you can't be positive about the door that's open. Eventually, that positivity overshadows the one time, small wish for the other route. In fact, you laugh and realise that had you pursued the one thing, you might not have the marvellous outcome afforded by the other path you too. Basically, Tom was probably crap in bed and left his pants next to the washing basket instead of in it. It's better this way.