Nat posted about un-medicated births over at :: Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies :: which inspired this post.

Now, anyone that knows me in real life knows that I am a total wuss. Seriously. I mean, I get a paper cut at work and consider taking the rest of the day off to recover.

But when it came to the birth of my daughter, I was determined that I was going to go un-medicated. I educated myself on mental techniques for dealing with pain, I practiced my breathing and visualizations, and most importantly I put exactly what I wanted into my birth plan, so that everyone in the room knew what I wanted them to do if I did end up asking for drugs (which was to distract me, unless I asked three times). I don't think anyone really believed I could do it, but they all agreed to do their part to help me try.

For the record, my plan worked fabulously, and M was born after 11 hours of un-medicated labour. Everyone told me how "proud" they were of me, but their praise didn't matter - I was proud of myself.