I agree Rebecca - belly belly certainly helped me prepare for the birth of my daughter - I was reading the post that I did back in July for this topic when I was only just pregnant. Now that I have been through the pregnancy and the labour I can say that I still support everything that I wrote back in July. I went into my labour informed but had no birth plan. I had discussed with my support person (DH) my thoughts. I went in with the opinion of 'go with the flow'. I informed the midwife at the beginning that I was aware of my pain relief options and that if I wanted anything I would ask. I had a normal delivery with no drugs! I agree that transition is definitely the hardest time and you do need a good support person to help get throught that as even though I knew I was in transition, it didn't matter! I don't think anything could have 'prepared' me as such for the intensity of the pain and how tiring the entire process was. Sitting here writing this I am trying to think how I would describe labour to someone and the funny thing is, I can't! There are no words to describe. Every description I was given prior doesn't compare to what I felt. So still support my previous post (page 1). Education on what is available, the pros and cons, and a belief that you can do it are the big factors, imo, for achieving a natural drug free labour.