Hi all!  I guess in many ways I had the best of both worlds for my labor
and delivery.  I had a marvelous midwife who practiced in a hospital
setting.  She had all the emergency interventions at hand if they were
needed, but practiced the midwife's philosophy not to intervene when not
absolutely necessary.  In fact, after hearing of my labor/delivery many of
the nurses on the floor were amazed I didn't have a c-section, stating that
any of the OB's would have performed one hours before I actually ended up
delivering vaginally.  This midwife had an OB practice that backed her up
in complicated cases (as mine was) but let *her* call the shots and set the
philosophy of the delivery room.  So it had much of the best of all.

Linda V.
Outside of Philadelphia PA, who delivered at Lankenau Hosp. with the great
help of Julia Clark, who has since retired :(