Showofhands, I'm certainly not going to even begin to suggest that this would or should apply to you, but just want to add a summary of my experiences of birth for you.
Birth number 1 - induction @ 15 days postdates at the end of a pretty dire pregnancy, healthwise. Never felt a contraction, but needed an epidural because my blood pressure was sky rocketing. DS1 turned out to be transverse presentation and after several hours of pushing was dragged out of me with keillands rotational forceps, one push short of emcs, which I'd already been prepped for. I bloody hated the epi, because it was so strong I was totally numb and couldn't move, but could feel deep pain in my hips as i was straining my ligaments. Could barely sit down for months because of deep bruising and wished I'd just had a CS, to be honest, because the recovery really would have been quicker. Ended up with 4 unit transfusion from blood loss before I got to leave hospital after the birth, then back in a few days later with pulmonary oedema. Thoroughly miserable time.
Didn't want another baby after that, but a subsequent oops pregnancy, which I lost after 7w made me realise that I really did.
Birth number 2. A few hours of irregular less painful than a menstrual cramp contractions, during which I had a bath, ate breakfast and played with DS1, soon ground to a halt, so laid on the sofa for a rest. Really needed a shit, though! Suddenly I had a longer, rather more painful contraction and DH phoned the hospital because it felt so wrong for early labour. Went to the toilet for that crap and out popped DS2! I did end up in hospital to have an extremely stubborn placenta removed with a spinal anaesthetic (apparently not uncommon with precipitate labour, as the cervix sometimes clamps shut really quickly - much like my fists wanted to do to the head of the macho twat of a doc who thought he could just pull it out without anaesthesia) but, despite that and yet another long transfusion, I found the experience extremely healing.