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 practices. The only problem: we weren’t pregnant.
When we finally conceived, I contacted the first midwife that we interviewed. As it turned out she was no longer providing services outside of a 100 mile radius. I was a little disappointed at first but she had a much higher “global fee” and she was further away. The other practice had two midwives, a birth center and they were just under two hours away.
We went and visited these midwifes again when I was about 12 weeks pregnant. At my first official appointment, I met the second midwife (she was out of town the first time we visited). She was very reassuring as she explained their methods again and what I could expect for my appointments. We talked about my diet, prenatal vitamins (I was already taking the prenatal vitamins that they recommended), and appropriate exercises for both the 2nd and 3rd trimesters. Based on my health history, diet and exercise habits, she said that I seemed to be very low risk which made me the perfect candidate for a home/birth center birth.
I had done my research and I knew what I should expect from the midwives. We were very pleased that these midwives truly embraced and practiced according to what I had discovered in my research. They also recommended that I read several books from their lending library. They were surprised and pleased that I had already read most of them and recommended that I re-read a couple of them as I approached labor.
So far our experience with the midwives was amazing!