The moral of my story is even if you don't get a single thing on your birth plan done (like cutting the cord or seeing the placenta because well, hell, they LOST it, or even skin to skin) even if it goes all wrong and you read these books and they seem to imply that the birth is terribly important and you must do all these things and give birth in water by the light of a candle singing a chant to mother earth you have failed and your baby will spend the first 3 months crying and possibly grow up to be a criminal (also due to the lack of a nursery with matching furniture) IT DOESN'T MATTER. The end result is the same and you should be too busy staring and loving your little baby and you should be damn proud you made that.