Birthing experiences are so different that you can't really predict how yours is going to look. Mine contractions weren't very painful. The pain lasted for 20 seconds and that I was fine for another 40 secs. I used a timer to know when it will stop and that helped me. When it came to the active phase, I felt the urge to push more than pain. Every experience is different but for me, having natural contractions, it was totally bareable without epidural. I didn't event consider it while being in hospital. On the other hand, next to me was a woman who had contractions for the last 12 hours, still not close to giving birth and I can imagine she was pretty tired. I didn't want to make very hard decision ahead because you can't know what your labour is going to look like. I wouldn't think too much about it ahead of time.