Deb, I repped you but I did want to say publicly what an awesome post that was.

However, to enter a birth expecting to get what is not offered is setting ourselves up for failure. A sense of failure and anger.
:yeahthat: so very true.
I was fortunate giving birth to my DD that I didn't need a csection and had a VB without any tearing or epi. As far as the birth itself went that was my main hope. I say hope rather than goal because I don't really feel it was fully within my control. Of course many other things happened which, in a perfect world would not happen next time.... synto drip, confined to bed, continuous monitoring, antibiotics, synto drip afterwards due to small PPH. DD was not breathing and required resus and was whisked off to NICU while I was left alone, bleeding and immobile in an empty room on a drip, not even my husband there, after the most overwhelming experience of my life. All in all I felt more processed than cared for, and subject to a process I was not able/ allowed to fully understand. As much as I would want the next experience to be different, having had a baby who needed specialist paediatric care at birth I don't think I could bring myself to give birth somewhere where that is not available. So it is likely I will have to face being processed in a similar way the next time. Which I can handle, but it would be nice if it could be different IYKWIM.
As for csections, many people swear by them and good luck to them. A friend of mine only has one complaint about her two csections, and that is that with her second pregnancy she had to endure a whole 45 mins of labour and that was 45 mins too long for her! What is sad though is those who feel they were railroaded into them, or otherwise did not get to make a choice, and struggle to come to terms with how their birth turned out. For myself I know I would be upset if after a long and painful labour I had to have a csection so I can understand that point of view completely.