When I had whiterabbit 31 years ago, I got the shave and enema, and zero choice about getting a spinal anesthetic, but they definitely did NOT tie me down. I think I would have fled first!
I was lucky that I had short labors with both my kids. With whiterabbit, I felt pressure but zero pain, and it was only by timing it that I realized I was having contractions every 5 minutes like clockwork. I’d been dilated to 2 cm a few days earlier at a doctor’s visit, so when I called my doctor’s partner who was on call, he was very blasé about my need to get to the hospital.
Unfortunately, he didn’t count on my being at 8 cm when I got to the hospital (with tornado sirens going off around us all the way), apparently dilating nearly all the way without any discomfort at all, so he barely made it in time for the delivery. There was an intern looking very hopeful that he’d get to deliver her, and frankly, at that point I didn’t care WHO did it as long as someone got this kid out! But no husbands in the delivery room, heaven forbid. At least he was allowed to visit us in the room afterwards, which was a new and exciting innovation! From my first realizing I was in labor till the time she was born was only 4 hours. I highly recommend skipping the early stages of labor and going straight to the important part!
I wasn’t actively sabotaged from breastfeeding, either, fortunately. They weren’t thrilled about it, but they dutifully brought her to me regularly.
When I had my son eight years later, times had changed SO much it was insane. No shave, no enema (and I agree, that enema had to be the WORST of the various indignities – talk about making a laboring woman miserably uncomfortable, for absolutely no reason since your digestive tract pretty much stops when you’re in labor in any case!), and I labored and delivered in a comfortable birthing room. In a military teaching hospital, no less. It was dimly lit, nice calm young resident doing the delivery, pleasant and helpful nurses, and a nice comfy wide and soft bed. The doctor did do an epi, but other than the local anesthetic for that I had zero medication, and frankly didn’t need it – I had some back labor, but even that wasn’t too awful.
My second delivery actually took slightly longer than my first because although I was once again well dilated (to 6 cm, I seem to recall) when I got to the hospital, I then proceeded to dilate to 9.5 cm – and stopped there. So for over an hour, the doctor had me hyperventilating in a paper bag and NOT pushing. Frankly, I found not pushing MUCH harder than actually pushing – your body knows what to do, so it really takes over and doesn’t like it when you try to thwart it. Fortunately, when she let me push, I think it only took about 2 contractions and he popped right out. I think my total labor this time was 4.5 hours.
Then after I delivered the afterbirth, the nurse said, “Okay, now you need to get up and go to the bathroom and pee.” I distinctly recall saying to her, “Excuse me, I don’t know if you noticed but I just had baby?” But she kindly explained to me that the sooner I’d get my systems working normally, the better off I’d be. And she wasn’t kidding. I genuinely felt 100% normal after 24 hours.
I was in a four-bed room, and after a couple of hours in the nursery making sure the babies were healthy, all the babies were in the room with us. Which was nice except for my one roommate who, when her baby would start crying that he was hungry, would get up out of bed, wander slowly to the bathroom, take her time peeing or whatever, come back, change him, and only THEN start feeding him…by which time every other living soul in the room was wide awake. Grr!
I tried to get out of the hospital the next day, but they told me that I could leave but they’d keep the baby. So I had to stay there for the full three days. 
However, it was as different a birth experience as you could imagine – in a comfy bed rather than a cold delivery room, with everyone acting like it’s a normal process that doesn’t require tons of medical intervention under normal circumstances.
I didn’t have the option of an epidural (they weren’t doing them at that hospital yet), but as it turned out I didn’t need one. I did have one last year for my knee replacement surgery, though, and now I know why so many women have them for childbirth – it certainly takes the vast majority of the discomfort out of the whole thing, doesn’t it?
Last but not least, I’ll leave you with what my mom told me, who’d had me in a local hospital in India, and as a Westerner they were concerned I didn’t have enough local antibodies to be in the nursery so she got to keep me in the room with her and nurse me and have natural childbirth and all in the 1950s, which is unusual – anyway, as she said, “They call it labor because it’s WORK.” And that’s truly what I found. By working with my body, it was a very powerful and moving experience but truly not a painful one for me. I hated pregnancy, but childbirth was the most amazing experience of my life!
a few times. Dad yelled at us to quit making so much noise, and chased me and my brothers upstairs, where we spent the rest of the night bouncing around on my parents’ bed and watching late-night/early morning TV on their tiny black and white. Although Dad and I had cleaned up really well and had put fresh sheets and blankets on the bed and everything, there was still a lingering aroma of childbirth in the air. I still remember the smell really clearly, even 15 years later. Dad slept on the couch, just outside my bedroom door, and the rest of the night passed quietly and uneventfully.
) I let Katie decide, and she decided to try these tablets that are supposed to ripen the cervix and allow the minor contractions she was having to start working.