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I have had three different birth experiences. The first was a natural vaginal delivery (loved it!). Second was emergency C-section with breech baby (hated the recovery) and the third was a successful VBAC (yay! also loved it).
As for the scar, yes, it does fade and the scar itself isn't so noticeable (it has been over 3 years now) but the way the skin/muscles were put back together makes kind of a funny pinching in parts and the whole area is not as smooth as I would like.
My natural birth experiences were MUCH better than the C-section experience, which should be obvious why I decided to go with a VBAC rather than endure another C-section. The recovery after the surgery was slow and painful, and especially hard since I had another young child to care for (which won't matter if this is your first, but think about the second baby or even third if you need to have repeat C-sections). My recovery from the natural, vaginal births was very quick and easy. Yes, your hips spread when you birth the baby vaginally, but you know, when I lost my pregnancy weight after my first birth, I ended up being a size 4 even though I had been a size 6 before having kids. So I was actually smaller. I am only about 12 weeks postpartum with this third, so we'll see what size I get down to when I lose all the pregnancy weight, but I am shrinking!
And the stretching of the vaginal area heals and is minimal afterward, so don't let that be a deciding factor.
If I could give you some advice, I'd say at least try the vaginal birth. You never know--you may end up needing a C-section anyway, but there's much less risk doing a vaginal delivery before having a C-section, if you end up deciding later you want to have both experiences.

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