We had 3 kids, one with an epidural and induced labor and the other 2 were natural child birth, no medication at all, and my wife much preferred the natural child birth -- all of them at at a hospital "birthing center", with a five minute walk to an OR if needed. She was more present emotionally at birth, we were able to walk out of the hospital with our baby a few hours later. She was practically bedridden for a week after the induced labor with the epidural.
Obviously, I'm only a spectator, but the overall experience seemed way less traumatic and stressful for her with the natural child birth, working with midwives and nurses rather than doctors.
The first birth is invariably the most difficult (longer, more painful), and the most difficult to recover from regardless of epidural. You can't at all compare the experience of a second birth without an epidural to the first birth with an epidural.
Also, it can be difficult for women to remember the finer details of the pain because the hormones after birth specifically function to cause a kind of amnesia. (The hormonal effect on memory isn't unique to pregnancy or women, it's just rarely so pronounced as at child birth.)
We've had two kids, the first my wife had an epidural (after rejecting it twice before expressly demanding one unprompted), the second without. The first birth lasted, IIRC, over 20 hours at the hospital (not counting initial time spent at home), and we had long conversations with various maternity nurses and our doula about women's experience with child birth. The hospital's nurses were on strike so our nurses were from around the country with experience with all different kinds of hospitals and populations.
Obviously, I'm only a spectator, but the overall experience seemed way less traumatic and stressful for her with the natural child birth, working with midwives and nurses rather than doctors.