For many many women, birth is just painful. That is a very common thing and not neccessarily something that will make you feel disappointed, incomplete, sad or traumitised. Pain- or lack of it- doesn't neccessarily mean your birth experience is any worse or better than anyone else's.
Exactly, that's why I thought I'd mention that I wasn't going into birth thinking I'd insured against pain. It just happened that way. My GF's home waterbirth was painful, in her own words, and she loved it and still wants more women to have a wonderful experience like her own. That's how I feel about mine - empowered (pain or no pain, it was extremely empowering), not that it gets a better mark for pain free-ness. I want women to have empowered births, not a blueprint version of my own physical experience.
It's like vocalising during birth. I didn't really do any and some women do heaps - and it tends not to do with the pain, it's just a 'thing', another 'thing' that makes a birth individual and reflective of the woman doing it