For example, during labor DH was the one I wanted holding my hand, tho
having my midwife there was important for both of us, to reassure us
all was normal and well. But very importantly, when we transferred to
the hospital and saw the OB on call whom I'd never met - tho she was
fabulous, having never had interaction with her could have made a
difficult situation more difficult. Being very wise, she turned to my
midwife who knew me well, knew the circumstances and had been with me
through labor to help guide her in her decisions with me. And I turned
to my midwife then for the same reasons. When it was most important
having that continuity of care was critical.

the wierd thing for me about all this is, that though in the UK you should
get the same person through your labour and delivery unless there is a shift
change, or something untoward, most of the time it's going to be someone you
don't know because most hospitals operate a system of having a set of
midwives on a given unit and a team of community midwifes, so you see the
community midwife antenatally and postnatally, but unless you have a
homebirth, someone else handles the birth and if you are admitted to
hospital, they are out of things, which can make for a bad situation. I
think had my midwife been involved in the late pregnancy discussions about
mode of delivery, a different result may have occurred, because she knew me,
knew that I was in tune with my body and that if I was requesting a
c-section then that meant I needed one, when the hospital midwives just
assessed me as someone who was fearful of labour. But given all that, at
least during labour a doctor didn't just waltz in at the last minute,
thinking there prescence was all important and necessary, when in actual
fact I just delivered the baby onto my tummy and absolutely zero
intervention was given, which we'd probably have had to fight had there been
a doctor there.

Cheers

Anne