Cassius - how is it that I never realized until now that you are in the US? On the opposite side of the continent from me, but still a whole lot closer than most of the BB crowd.

I can't add a whole lot to the transfer discussion, really, but I'll throw in my two cents. I thought about it a bit with DD3, but I had a calm and confident midwife (whom I really miss!) and everything went beautifully. With DD4, I suppose you could almost say that I transferred, because I had to switch from a home birth to a hospital birth on the day I went into labour, because my GBS test came back positive, and the rule here is that they can't hang IV antibiotics at home. It was still a great birth - my midwives handled everything for me at the hospital, and aside from having that stupid IV in my hand, the rest was pretty much natural. I asked for an ARM, because I wanted to hurry things along, but that was it for interventions.
DS was almost a transfer, right at the end. I laboured at home with him, and things went really quickly and easily, but then his head was in a bad position (posterior brow presentation) and I had a very hard time pushing him out. It was when my (annoying, worries-out-loud, and indecisive) midwife said that we should transfer that I finally got mad enough and found a final burst of energy and pushed him out. A transfer at that point would have been terrible for me. I was naked, upstairs, in my own bed, worn out and in a lot of pain, and the thought of having to get onto a stretcher, down the stairs, out of the house, and to the hospital (20min drive) and possibly have a c-section at that stage was unthinkable! My baby was not in distress - he was handling everything very well. If he had been stressed, that would have changed my mind pretty quickly, I think.

About mec in waters - I believe if there's solid mec in the waters when they break then you have to transfer, here. But if it's just mec staining from an earlier BM, you don't, I think.