When I was a beginning midwife thirty-some years ago, U. S. women were just beginning to recognize that they could make choices in how they gave birth. Their mothers had mostly assumed that they had to do whatever their doctors said with no loved ones nearby, even when that meant submitting to mandatory forceps deliveries, routine pubic shaves, enemas and large episiotomies. Midwives were not available to more than 99 percent of women then, and few women knew that midwives could be a possible option.