LG, I think it's fantastic that you had the birth experience that you worked so hard for - and you deserve many congratulations for your efforts rather than dismissal that it was "easy". From what I've heard, the short labours can be the most intense of them all - and each labour is intensely challenging in its own way. You should definitely feel proud at what you have achieved.

Perhaps what people mean when they say that you are 'lucky' is that you are fortunate that circumstances allowed you to have the births that you worked so hard for? I don't think that I have expressed this very well, but I did as much preparation and planning as you, and exercised and did all of the things to facilitate a natural birth, but the circumstances transpired that I was not to have a natural labour, and resulted in an emergency c/s because he got stuck after a long posterior labour. It turned out that I had a narrow pelvis which had never been picked up. I'm not upset at the experience that I had, or bitter that I had done all of this work leading up to the event because I know that I did everything I possibly could to achieve the birth that I wanted, it just wasn't meant to happen. But hey, I might have ended up with a bloody big scar, but I also ended up with a beautiful healthy son!

So perhaps as well as the hard work and preparation there is a little bit of 'fortune' involved in giving birth - we had such similar lead ups to our births but such different outcomes (and all on the same day too!! LOL!). I think that we should both be proud of what we have achieved!!