Bec, sorry you feel like you've been lambasted (I may have made that word up 8-[ ). I think it is your choice how you get bubs from the inside to the outside (and I think we're all grown up enough to at least try to make an informed choice). I also personally think that sometimes we'd all be better off physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually if we considered the actualy emergence of the baby more as part of the bigger picture, rather than the supreme culmination, icing on the cake, fireworks going off finish of a pregnancy. (How disappointing, if that was the piece-de-resistance of raising a child).

Birthing a baby takes a lot more than 1 hr on a surgery table or 20 hours in a birthing suite. Just as our babies are preparing for life in the outside world from the moment they're conceived, our bodies are preparing to help them come out and look after them once they're breathing oxygen. If we can prepare our minds, emotions and spirit during this time too, I think we'd all be better prepared for the "emerging", whether that be without drugs in your lounge room, in a birthing suite or in an operating theatre.

I just think sometimes we, as women, place so much importance on the actual "birth" that we miss the special big picture mystery of a new life created, developed, birthed and raised.