Search Results for: blog finding a midwife

The First Official Prenatal Visit with Our Midwife

The first order of business was to find someone to watch our son. It just so happened that my fifteen year old sister had the day off from work. I picked her up from work the night before so that I wouldn’t have to worry about rushing around to pick her up in the morning in combination with our 9:30AM appointment. As we rushed around making breakfast and and coffee (mine is a decaf latte), we were finally ready to go. Once we arrived at the midwives home office, the paperwork began. First she when through her contract with us … Continue reading →

Choosing a Midwife

Choosing a health care practitioner for the duration of one’s pregnancy, labor, and delivery is not necessarily easy especially if you, like me, just moved. In anticipation for our big move back to the midwest, I began looking into the options available in the city where we were going to move. This city isn’t a huge city but it is significantly larger than the city we just left, with more than half a million people, surely there would be lots of prenatal and birthing options. Given that there are three major hospitals in the area, there are literally hundreds of … Continue reading →

10 Reasons Why We Chose a Midwife

My quest for a midwife was largely motivated by my dislike of shots, needles, drugs, and hospitals. After reading a large number of books and several articles comparing and contrasting birthing options, the benefits of using a midwife for the pregnancy and birth of our son was undeniable and 100% desirable. Here are our top ten reasons for choosing a midwife in no particular order: Reason Number One — More Control: Instead of being a passive participant with things happening to me, I was actively seeking to ensure the best possible outcome for both pregnancy and birth. The midwives supported … Continue reading →

Finding a Midwife

We had decided to go with a midwife shortly before we starting trying to conceive. After reading “A Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth” by Henci Goer and several other similar books, I started looking for midwives in our area and there weren’t any! The closest midwives were at least two hours away. So I called them up and we took a day to visit them (they were 20 minutes from each other). Talking to the different midwives was a great experience. They answered all my questions and I really felt prepared to go with either of the two … Continue reading →

Let’s Talk Interview – With the Midwife

I conducted an interview with Eileen Denomme, a local homebirth midwife, to get an idea of what midwifery is all about. Here is what she had to say: Me: What led you to midwifery? Eileen: I think it was a combination of having 4 children born at home, and noticing the huge contrast between those and the hospital births my friends and family members were having. Eventually, people were asking me to attend their home births, and after 3 years of observing the senior midwife’s role during prenatals and home births, putting in my college studies and reading midwifery text … Continue reading →

The Let’s Talk Pregnancy Blog in the New Year

In closing my very first month as a Pregnancy Blogger, I am closing out a year as well. I would like to say thank you to those of you that have read my entries so far. I’m having a wonderful time writing about a topic that is very near and dear to me. I hope you all are enjoying reading as much as I am writing. Here is a look-back on December 2006 and a look forward to the things I will touch on in the New Year: I talked about a lot of things that relate to the first … Continue reading →

Let’s Talk About Finding a Gift for Your Midwife

When you hire someone to catch your baby, they ought to be someone you can trust and confide in. As it often happens when a woman hires a homebirth midwife, the relationship can even be taken a step further. This is generally due to the long appointment visits, where a woman will get to know and like her midwife. Many women keep in contact with their midwives after developing a special bond with them during pregnancy and childbirth. Also, they play a pivotal role in a very special time in your life. As this can surely happen with doctor or … Continue reading →

Why I Have A Doula

We’ve written a little bit before about doulas on the site, but we’ve never been able to share personal experiences with one until now.  Back when I first found out I was pregnant, I wanted a midwife but couldn’t find one.  I thought at least I might be able to find a doula, because that would be better than nothing.  I wanted someone, other than my at-times too logical husband, who would definitely be all on my side during labor. It took me a while, and I actually ended up finding a midwife first, but I was able to find … Continue reading →

Labor Pain

Pain in labor is, for most women, inevitable. As I anticipated the birth of our daughter, I knew that before I held my newborn in my arms, I would have to undergo a certain amount of pain. Pain is not something that I seek out, but the pain of labor was something that I had tried to prepare myself for the only way I knew how; by not dwelling on it. I had already experienced a pretty intense labor with my son. I chose to do an intervention free labor and delivery with my son. I found a midwife that … Continue reading →

Labor Part III

After about thirty minutes of these stronger contractions, I told my husband to call the midwife. It was about eight in the morning. Once the midwife and her on-call nurse arrived, they checked my progress. I was still only about three centimeters dilated but my cervix was now anterior so there was progress albeit still slow progress in the last eight hours of labor. Soon after the midwife and nurse arrive my contractions continued to get stronger and more painful. The contractions seemed to be right on top of each other. With every contractions I reached for my husband for … Continue reading →