When I got pregnant with DS I was the fittest I've been in a very very long time and it was a 22 hour labour with all the pain relief under the sun and a forceps delivery.

I never did get back into any exercise after that and I birthed DD, a 4.27kg baby, with no pain relief whatsoever and an 11 hour posterior labour.

For me it was all about where I was mentally. There was no way I was going to have another forceps birth, and I swore it didn't matter how bad the labour got, nothing could be as bad as the recovery from the forceps, which was horrendous.

I actually had a couple of midwives come in and visit me to check out DD and tell me how impressed they were with me and that they wished they could get me to talk to a couple of women that had booked in for elective c-sections the next day and their reason for it was "they didn't think they could stand the pain."

I was a bit bemused actually because although I can't say it was fun, I can honestly say I didn't really think my labour with DD was "that bad"!

While I wouldn't discount looking after yourself physically, I personally think mental fitness is far more important.