Thank you so much for all your responses girls, and Sasa I don't want you or anyone to feel attacked (I think as women were are attacked enough we should at least be same in a forum like this!)

You are all echoing thoughts I have had myself, and bearing out an inkling I had that many women don't actually mind the idea of hospitals, but its the reality of them that has us worried (ie: your mw/doc/OB might mouth words of support for a natural birth but the reality of being in a hospital "system" is that it is pro-intervention).

A really minor example of this - with DS#1 he was born 27 hours after my waters first broke, so he was given a shot of penicillin to prevent infection because hospital policy required the nurse to do so if the baby was not born within 24 hours. There was no sign of any infection, and I know some hospitals have a similar 48 or 72 hour policy. I remember thinking that was so dumb!