CHICAGO — A week before my second baby was due, I told my hair stylist I'd be skipping the epidural.

Angie, who was also pregnant, looked alarmed. "No way," she said, thinking about her own birth plan. "I'd be way too scared."

Still, I didn't push a drug-free experience. After all, during labor with my first son, I thought women who eschewed epidurals were trying to be martyrs. I agreed to the pain-killers long before really feeling any serious pain.

But now I wish I'd told Angie the other side: that birth is natural and very doable without medication. It hurts like hell, of course, but our bodies are exquisitely designed for childbirth. And there are plenty of compelling reasons why women having normal vaginal births should consider going drug-free.

For starters, drugs given epidurally reach the mother's and the baby's bloodstreams. The amounts may be low, but some researchers believe they can interfere with the production of oxytocin, a bonding hormone that facilitates both birth and breast-feeding.

Drugs can trigger labor on the spot, whether or not your body is ready for it. They can intensify labor pain, which sets the stage for more medication. And the numbing effect makes it much more difficult to push instinctively, meaning you're more likely to have tears or medical intervention.

Yes, they miraculously erase the legendary agony of childbirth. But do we really want to do that when pain has a critical role in the birth process? Coping with it "naturally improves your odds for a faster and easier birth, an alert baby, a healthy you and a successful start to breast-feeding," according to Judith Lothian and Charlotte DeVries in "The Official Lamaze Guide" (Meadowbrook Press, 2005), the book that first piqued my curiosity about drug-free births.

That's not to say that women shouldn't have access to epidurals, labors shouldn't be induced and that medical intervention is unnecessary. Labor is unpredictable, and no other life experience is as individual and personal as giving birth. Women should have a choice.

But don't make the mistake I did the first time around: Get educated and participate in the process. With my first son, I couldn't fathom how the baby would actually get out of my body and flat-out refused to research it.

Instead, I picked a mainstream hospital where medicated births were the rule, not the exception. I chose an OB-GYN who was a cyclist, hoping she'd let me bike until my due date, instead of considering a nurse-midwife. Feeling blissfully ignorant, I sat back and went along for the ride.

Although the epidural made the whole experience much more comfortable, I was left feeling unsatisfied. The second time, I promised myself, would be different.

It was, even though I went back to the same hospital and stayed with my much-loved and trusted doctor, rather than using a nurse-midwife or a birth coach. When I was offered the labor-inducing drug Pitocin to speed things up, I said no. When the anesthesiologist approached my bed with a "just in case" consent form, I refused to sign.

To cope when the contractions turned violent, my husband steadied me as I sat on a Swiss ball, and I focused on staying as quiet and internal as possible. Counting my breaths helped; so did mentally softening into the blows.

But when it was time to push, I grew agitated by the wires from the fetal monitor and the IV. I was frustrated that I didn't know how to best position my body. "Gravity! Gravity!" I kept repeating, since I'd read that squatting was the most logical way to give birth.

Finally, my doctor gently coaxed me on to my back and coached me using a language I understood. "Keep going to the finish line!" she cried. The pelvic pressure was otherworldly. It stung. I forgot to breathe. I worried he was stuck, that I didn't have it in me to push to the finish. I thought I was going to fail.

But then it dawned on me: I just had to muster enough courage to push until my insides exploded. When I did, my 9.2-pound, 22-inch baby boy found his way out.

My husband and I rejoiced, happy that I'd been able to deliver the baby on my own terms, but even more grateful that he was healthy. In the end, that was all that really mattered.