Au naturale ala aqua?

Two things have been floating around in my head lately.

1. Should I have a totally natural (i.e., medication-free) birth?
2. Should I consider a water birth?

The hospital here on base has LDRP rooms, which means "Labor, Delivery, Recovery, and Postpartum."  This basically means that the room I go into from the beginning is mine until I leave the hospital.  Many hospitals have LDR but you have to go to a different room after the baby is born and cleaned up and given vitamin K and eye goop, and all that.  Another thing the hospital here has is a birthing tub.  You can labor in the tub and then get out to deliver (the last hospital I was in for my firstborn was this way).  But the difference here is, if you want to HAVE the baby in the tub, you can do that.

The major thing about doing a water birth is (once you get past the idea that you could potentially be sitting in your own "juices" for a while), you absolutely CANNOT do this with pain medication.  Although, from some of the research I've done, the water causes such relaxation in the mother that meds are not often required anyway.

The American Pregnancy Association had this to say about water birth: "Water seems to alleviate stress-related hormones, allowing the mother’s body to produce endorphins, which are pain-inhibitors."

Other websites I've found are:
http://www.waterbirth.org/
http://www.gentlebirth.org/
http://www.waterbirthinfo.com/benefits.html
http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/lakshmi_bertram.html

The other thing I've been thinking about is drug-free.  I had an epidural with my first, and it went quite well.  From the very first contraction I felt until baby-in-arms was a mere 21 hours, and from epidural to birth was only five hours.  Nothing slowed down, I still dilated as expected, and I only had to push for 15 minutes (which is SUPER fast for even veteran moms).  However, I am considering it just because I'd like to be able to be informed and say I've done it both ways, and this or that was the way I liked better.

It will be a tough decision, but a friend (who just had a med-free birth) recommended I watch "The Business of Being Born," a documentary by none other than Ricki Lake, which is available on Netflix instant view.  To join their online community of support, their website is available here.

Anyway, I have a lot to consider.  Luckily, I still have a few months to consider it!