To think a lot of midwives are.. just not very good?

I was very lucky to have an outstanding midwife when my daughter was born. She was dedicated, reassuring and supportive. Unfortunately, when her shift ended she was replaced by an inexperienced midwife who was accompanied by a student. Neither of these midwives inspired any confidence and my easy labour quickly deteriorated- I went from feeling very confident and in control with my first midwife to feeling very anxious with the inexperienced staff, babies heart rate turned suddenly and I required an emergency Caesarean. I think a good midwife is worth their weight in gold.

I’m currently pregnant with my second child. It is a high risk pregnancy and my midwife checks in with me after every appointment. She couldn’t be more dedicated and reassuring. I hope I’m lucky enough to have competent midwives during this birth!

But that doesn't mean that the service provided can be described as good. Just reasons for it (sometimes dangerously) missing the mark

I had two polar opposite births, with my first I was very young, naive, didn't really know what I was going into. My midwife was horrible, I was desperate for a water birth but really struggled with the pain (turned out DD was back to back) and was made to feel useless because I had to get out the pool to have stronger pain relief. I was labouring on all fours as that's where I was most comfortable but was shouted at that I had to be on my back with my legs up so I naively did what I was told, resulting in a bad 3rd degree tear. Traumatised me if I'm honest.
With second DD's birth my midwife couldn't have been more amazing, I was obviously very nervous and was having a section due to trauma from pervious birth. She talked me through everything, gave me extra time to process when needed, reassured me and DH throughout and constantly checked on me, even held my hand when I was crying in fear of the spinal injection, she didn't leave my side until I was back on the ward with baby. She healed me and restored my faith in midwives. There are definitely some angels out there, hopefully in the majority.

I would imagine understaffed and overworked would probably be a fairer description

If we're splitting between community midwives and hospital midwives, my community ones were reliably shite. Couldn't even plot the growth graph.

My midwife was brilliant. She was a 3rd year student so I suppose did things by the book. She got someone senior to come in only when baby was minutes from coming. She really made sure I didn’t tear that time round and gave me whatever I needed. I bought her a chocolate gift when I left because she made that much of an impression on me. I do prefer solitude when going through tough things though, so she gave me the perfect amount of space to labour and moan and groan as I needed.

Over 2 pregnancies I was under the care of several midwives (during antenatal care and deliveries), just one of them was not great, the others were very good!

100% agree. With my second, I told her I was ready to push. She said "I'm sure you feel that way" and left the room. I obviously just cracked on. My husband had to run out of the room to shout at the midwife station that the baby had been born. This was a high risk birth by the way...

I’m sorry that was your experience, I must admit though my own experience when having my daughter last year could not have been any more different. All of the midwives who cared for me during my labour & induction were absolutely amazing and I was certainly not a textbook case, pretty much everything that could go wrong, did, bit the care I received was truly amazing and I’ll always be grateful for that.