For me, birth has never been traumatic. Painful yes, but enjoyable, exhilarating and empowering are some other words I use!
This is exactly what I wanted to write. Whilst labour and birth are certainly hard, painful work, I really loved them. I'm actually sad that I'll never get to experience another birth.

Birthing is like becoming a parent though (funnily enough ) but in the fact that until you've experienced it, I don't think you can truly ever understand what it's like/how it feels/etc until you've been there and done it, no matter how much you read/research/prepare. I think this is perhaps where some of the 'trauma' comes in because despite best intentions, it's never likely to be how you might have imagined it to be ITMS
I definitely agree with this. I knew that labour would b painful and told myself over and over that no matter how painful I thought it was going to be, it was going to be even more painful than that. I didn't do that to try to scare myself, I just thought of it as my way of preparing for what was to come. And in all honesty, once I was in transition with my son I was still surprised with the sheer excruciating intensity of the pain.

I definitely don't feel like my first birth was traumatic for me in any way, and I had a rather great first labour and delivery. It made me excited to do it again with DD. I learnt from the first experience and I believe it helped with the second which was an even better experience. Then my third birth was pretty close to perfect. I look back on all three births with very fond memories