Haunting words

I had occasion in a recent past life to have some conversations with an LCMS mother of five--not a big family homeschooler type, not a conscience-bound CSPP type, not a rich lots-of-babies-trend type--just someone who had vague independent misgivings about birth control and ended up with five kids as a result. Anyway. We were talking about L&D and her take on it was that one's piety during the event decreases with each child, which I found amusing (especially as she described her quiet prayers and singing during her first labor, compared with the angry shouting directed at her husband by the time 3 and 4 rolled around). But then she said that her last birth had been by far the best. I asked her why. "Easy," she said. "I finally took the epidural."