Does it really make that much of a difference? Please say it does.

Most of you are aware I had a late term abortion for medical reasons, and the last bit of that involves basically giving birth (though it's a little different in some ways). Because it's not done in a hospital with an anesthesiologist, there's no option for an epidural or any significant pain relief, and since you can't exactly wait to go into labor naturally, you have to be on pitocin. And it was really, really traumatic. I've always wanted to try for a natural birth, but now I'm terrified of any kind of birth other than a scheduled c-section. If we try again, I'll be looking into counseling for that. There were a lot of factors that contributed that wouldn't apply to a normal birth (I was left alone for most of it, I don't do well on most narcotic painkillers, etc), but I'm wondering how much the pitocin contributed to it. I know it kept things more intense, given that within minutes of starting the IV I was having contractions 90 seconds or less apart, with barely any break. But for those who have had it both ways, with pitocin and without, how different were your experiences?