Pixie, great words about continuity of care. This was biggest bugbear while I was pregnant. I still believe to an extent the lack of continuity of care for me was a huge factor in the death of my baby. I did not have a relationship with any midwife or doctor who I spoke to when I was worried about my daughter so they dismissed me as a anxious first time mother and didn't treat me seriously. To top it off the one doctor I saw left the hospital the day she gave me the last ultrasound and didn't pass on the information about how the ultrasound went. I effectively got "lost in the shuffle".
My choice of birthing hospital was taken from me by the doctors and I was forced to birth where I did not feel comfortable.
As first time mother I felt I was fairly realistic. None of my care met even those expectations.
Birth plans set us up for failure. They do not take the intervention that will be imposed on us into account enough.
We need to fight the intervention OR give up and accept it. We should stop assuming that at the moment we actually have any choice in birth because we don't. We can be "lucky" and have things go our way but we do not have any control over the actuality of birth and certainly no control over the people caring for us in this dynamic situation.