I can only give my experience. I used a bit of laughing gas when flodjunior was born, and went totally drug-free for flod2k’s birth. If I were to have a third, which will happen over my dead body, I would definitely try for drug-free again.
I didn’t use any method. I just kept reminding myself that I had puked my way through both pregnancies and been absolutely miserable (particularly the second time around), so what was a few hours of pain? Even if it was absolute agony, at least it wasn’t nine months’ worth. I could deal with it. And I did, and for me it wasn’t agony.
(I did use nitrous after flod2k was born, because I had a double tear and the midwife needed to do quite a bit of fancy embroidery to put me back together. And the local anesthetic didn’t work worth sh*t. To me, getting stitched up is much much worse than giving birth. Go figger.)