Five stars are not enough. The Capital Region is SO blessed to have midwife Michelle Doyle. For the…read morerest of my life, no matter how relieved I may be to say goodbye to the Albany area, I will look back and remember how fortunate I was to be cared for throughout pregnancy and childbirth by Michelle. Perhaps she was the reason for our sojourn here.
I'll try to keep this brief, but it will be hard because there's so much to say about the woman and our experience with her, and my brain is addled from the sleep deprivation of a new parent. Please bear with me...
I always knew that if I had a healthy, low risk pregnancy, I wanted a home birth. Not sure when or why or how the notion got into my head, but it's been with me a long, long time. Of course when the time came, I did my due dilligence re, the facts surrounding the midwifery model of care, safety statistics, etc; and felt certain that it was right for me.
Enter Michelle. She has nearly 30 years of experience in hospital, birthing center and home birth deliveries. She has outstanding statistics for everything from transfers to cesareans to tearing, all of which can be seen here: http://www.localcaremidwifery.com. She *thoroughly* explains the whys and hows and risks and benefits of everything you might encounter during your pregnancy and birth and never, never talks down to you, rushes you, or substitutes her judgment for your own. Of course, like any good midwife, she is extremely careful about whom she agrees to attend. You can be sure that if she agrees to take you on as a client, you are in fact a stellar candidate for a home birth.
My husband, who despite (because of?) coming from a family of doctors, has a huge amount of anxiety surrounding even routine medical care, even said upon leaving one prenatal appointment, " I always feel so much better after seeing her." And during the birth, which we were both uncertain how he would handle, he stayed calm and engaged because he had such tremendous faith in her judgment and training.
As for me, I don't want to bore anyone with a birth story, so I'll just say this- there is a reason that doctors "deliver" babies, and midwives "attend" births. During the birth, I had only the vaguest sense of Michelle as a calm and encouraging presence. I was occupied with the work of bringing our son into the world, and she never forced the attention back to her. I remember a few low and calm "beautiful, beautiful, everything is fine, this is what you have to do to meet your baby, yes, yes, good..." but otherwise she stood back and let me move how and where I wanted, to vocalize the way I needed to, and to close my eyes and shut everyone out when I couldn't handle the extra stimulation. I knew, in whatever small part of my mind that was still capable of logical thought, if she was calm, I really was fine, and that if for some reason things became "not fine," she had the training to manage it. When it was all over we ate a scoop of Cherry Garcia and climbed into our own bed with our baby right next to us (well, on top of us actually), where he belonged.
American obstetrics is in a truly sorry state, and current practices endanger women and babies, and undermine things of vital importance (bonding and breastfeeding as well as confidence in your body and your judgment at a time when you most need it) but that's a rant for another day, so I'll leave that alone for now. Suffice it to say, Michelle has our eternal gratitude for the beautiful birth of our son.
* I would be happy to answer any questions about Michelle or about our experience with home birth- just message me
ETA: Michelle also does Well Woman (gynecological) care.
