My wife thinks a doula might be a good idea ... given that when she has the flu, I get kinda of worried. I'm thinking about asking one out to a lunch at the least.
1. Get educated, you AND your bride. Knowledge is power in this case. The more you both know about what's going on, the better you will be able to make decisions while labor is in progress. This was crucial in our case, my husband was my clear-headed support and advocate!
2. Make sure that your OB and your midwife (if you have one) are willing to communicate with you what's going on - good or bad. Again, this was crucial in our case!
3. Take the childbirth classes (we had Lamaze 'cause that's the course that was taught by the head of maternity nursing at our hospital!) The breathing techniques really worked for us, we even experimented with the monitor to prove it.
4. Expect the unexpected, and go with it. Labor will not go like you expect, and so you have to adapt to what happens. If I had had a difficult and lengthy labor without much progress over a long period of time, or any kind of troubles like a funny presentation, you BET I would have had the epidural. (In fact my labor progressed so rapidly that I was in transition before we knew it, I did ask for an epidural but my husband said "check her one more time" and I was 10 cm dilated and plus two - baby arrived in 10 more minutes! Again, knowledge is power - when the doc told me I was 10 and plus two, I said, "Aw heck, this isn't that bad!" and suddenly it wasn't. It was the THOUGHT of 12-20 MORE hours at that level of discomfort that made me ask for the epidural.)
5. Do note that an epidural takes awhile to wear off, and the next day you are likely to have a TERRIBLE headache. Out of the 20 or so women who were in labor that night, I was the only one who went natural, and the next morning I was up and about, strolling the halls, and playing with my baby, while most (not all) of the other ladies were stretched out on their beds with splitting headaches. Of course they may have improved the process -- my information is 16 years old -- but be sure to ask.
6. Does it hurt? Yeah, but when I had my knee drained for a torn ACL it hurt a lot worse. Having my wisdom teeth out hurt a lot worse. What it IS is the hardest work I have ever done in my life. I felt like I was trying to lift railroad ties by myself - heart-cracking, mouth-drying, muscle-straining, HARD WORK (that's why they call it LABOR.)
7. Do go to the hospital. They have nice birthing rooms now with all the comforts of home, but with the emergency equipment right next door. Most births are so uneventful as to be boring, but you don't want to be that odd one out. My sister in law probably would have died if she had tried to have her baby at home - one of those last minute, one in a million emergencies - but it isn't rare if it happens to you. But she and the baby are both fine, thanks to all that wonderful diagnostic and surgical equipment they just happen to have in the hospital.