Whether you're an obstetrician or a third-grade teacher or a real estate agent, you know when you're doing good work. You're passionate about it.

When I ask my medical students to describe their image of a woman who elects to birth with a midwife rather than with an obstetrician, they generally describe a woman who wears long cotton skirts, braids her hair, eats only organic vegan food, does yoga, and maybe drives a VW microbus.

I'll never forget the blooming happiness that spread in me like the sun coming up when Lydia's obstetrician poked me awake: 'Congratulations... you have a fine son.'

It would be a mistake, though, to consider care by family doctors or midwives inferior to that offered by obstetricians simply on the grounds that obstetricians need not refer care to a family physician or midwife if no complications develop during a course of labor.