My experience: I could feel the contractions and the birth canal, but that was painless (until the ruddy obs decided in birth things go UP the birth canal, but that's another story). I disliked the sensation. I had virtually painless contractions and was pushing pain-relief-free (and virtually pain-free) before I was told I "needed" the epidural... the down sides were the constant monitoring, the lack of freedom to move around, the fact that DS had turned due to the monitoring, requiring the obs to mess around... that annoyed me. And you don't need stress, people telling you what to do and what you're doing wrong, and the like in labour. I was doing everything "perfectly" (in the midwife's words) pre-epidural. I had it so I could "have a sleep" (HAHA!) but had no rest because my body REALLY wanted to push and the epidural didn't stop that.

I'm not anti-epidural, if you want one then have one. I'm just anti-hospital and anti-anyone being around when I give birth. But I felt like that before DS was born too.