I have to admit I had good midwives too, both in public and private hospitals. My first 2 births were public and for the first, the dr came to perform an ARM and came in after the baby was born to stitch me up. For my 2nd, a dr never even came near me until the baby had been delivered. He only came in to check the bleeding to see if it was excessive after the fact (it wasn't). I don't think I missed having a dr there for both deliveries in any case.

For my 3rd birth, I was in a birth centre and the midwife herself almost missed the birth, thinking I had hours to go, checking on other women she thought were going to deliver first lol. Oops!

For the 4th birth, I had a good midwife who stayed with me, but man I wanted to punch her out every single time she would tell me how well I was handling the pain, and was I ready for an epidural now? My ob, despite our good history previously, felt like someone who I had an adversarial relationship with in the delivery room, and while I will not discount the positive part he eventually played in the birth, I also don't feel like he provided the value I had hoped he would.

Oh and also, after the birth, the private hospital maternity ward nurses kept asking me how my ceasarean scar was going, and I had to keep telling them I'd delivered vaginally. I suppose I should have expected this considering that out of the 10 women in my antenatal class, I was the only one planning a vaginal delivery.

I think if not for my husband's concerns though, I would have chosen a birth centre birth again for my 4th. I agreed to have an ob and birth in a private hospital because of his concerns, and as a trade off for refusing to have a planned c/s, but in hindsight, I don't think that being in a private hospital was the best place for me. And he now agrees with me.