Nova was recommended to me for a home birth VBAC (already had one successful one). After finding…read moreout I was a woman of plus size, I was denied service with them. Their claim was that their VBACs need to be "pristine" because of liability reasons. My being plus size is not evidence based and is in fact, the same kind of shaming that I would expect from a typical medical doctor and not someone who practices midwifery. This was deeply disappointing. I'm grateful they can offer home birth options for women but if you don't fit their mold, you won't be accepted. Huh.. I went on to have a successful unmedicated 2nd VBAC.

We found nova midwifery through a friend... we were interested in having a home birth but weren't…read moresure, so we reached out to a friend to learn about their experience. They recommended Mason at Nova, so we called for an initial consult. Our son was delivered in 2015 at kaiser without intervention, and we liked the experience... except for all the medical stuff like wearing a heart monitor and sleeping in a hospital and all the worry that seems to come along with being in a hospital. For our second birth, we wanted a natural birth, but maybe a little more comfortable. We ended up hiring Mason and Melissa at Nova for our prenatal care, delivery, and recovery, and had a really nice experience. First, they're both 5 star people. Good bedside manner, good sense of humor, a nice wealth of knowledge. They are very good at quelling your fears and questions that come along with pregnancy and delivery, and appointments are typically really positive (you got this girl!). I would say from the husband side that a homebirth was WAY more enjoyable for me. My own bed, my own home, my own food, and I got to catch my daughter as my wife leaned over the ottoman. What an experience! I'll never look at that ottoman the same. I feel like these women checked all the boxes, professional, fun, empathetic, and knowledgeable. I hear they have new space in Walnut Creek, but one of the nicest things for us is they did some home visits for prenatal care since they had other clients in our area. Towards the end, we saw them in the office, and it was always a tranquil environment, very different from the kaiser waiting room. I think the recovery is the biggest advantage to the homebirth. These ladies support you through the first few weeks, and being home with your newborn is sooooo nice in the first few hours of life. I don't think I would have been comfortable with my first child at home, but now that I know what I'm doing, homebirths and nova are the only way I would go for an uncomplicated pregnancy and delivery.

I don't have enough good things to say about Shannon and her business. She was absolutely…read moreincredible from start to finish. From the very first phone call I felt so comfortable and genuinely heard. She took the time to answer every question and listen to my previous birth story and never made me feel rushed. She listened with understanding and compassion and for the first time I truly felt like a care provider was really listening to me. For my first birth, I had a typical hospital birth with a typical OB. Although I did not have a traumatic experience, I wanted something different for my second time around. I found Shannon and it truly was a blessing. The level of care and attention to detail was above and beyond anything I had experienced before. When the day came to give birth, having her there made me feel so safe supported and empowered. If I was ever to do this again, I would not hesitate to use Shannon and her team and have another home birth. It truly was a defining experience and something that I believe that all women should be able to experience. If you're looking for a quality Midwife service that treats you like family and truly listens to you look no further. I cannot recommend Shannon enough!

How do you simply "leave a review" for the beautiful people who facilitated an absolutely…read morelife-changing and indescribable experience? It feels so trivial to try to put into words what Shannon and A'maya gave to our family. They will forever have a space in my heart, and I cannot recommend working with them enough. From the very beginning, they gave us such a deep feeling of comfort and security, not only through their incredible knowledge but through their presence alone. During the birth, they created such a calm and steady presence in our home. I always felt supported and reassured, and their quiet confidence helped me stay grounded through the entire experience (and it was long). They knew exactly when to step in and when to simply hold space. Their care extended far beyond the clinical -- it was emotional, human, and deeply compassionate. Choosing a home birth for my first birth was one of the best decisions I have ever made, and having Shannon and A'maya as my midwives made it more beautiful than I could have imagined. And somehow, incredibly, alhamdulillah, I can honestly say I miss my birth. How many people can say that? It was such a powerful, peaceful, and empowering experience, one that I will cherish for the rest of my life. That is a testament to the environment they created and the care they provided. I am forever grateful. May Allah bless them abundantly, reward them for every moment of care they gave us, place barakah in their work, and allow them to continue being a source of comfort, safety, and strength for families like ours. Ameen.

After 50 min of waiting in the waiting room I finally went and asked if I need to reschedule as I…read moreneed to pick my kids up from school or find someone to do it. They said I'm next and brought me into the room 5 min later. I'm still waiting in the room 15 min later. My appt was scheduled over an hour ago. This is completely unacceptable and disrespectful. If they're running this late they need to tell patients when they sign in that they're OVER AND HOUR LATE. Zero regard or consideration for other's time or childcare situations. Though they say they will charge $95 if you cancel your appointment in their confirmation text. I'd seek another OB.

Had a pregnancy confirmation appointment this afternoon. They instantly put me in a room where I…read moreshortly met Nicole, she was incredibly nice and made me feel comfortable from the beginning especially with answering all questions we had and explaining everything well. Staff is also amazing and very easy to talk to. Great experience overall, will definitely continue to go back for future care!!

Cherrelle is a fantastic Doula. I had the pleasure of having her help and services with my newborn…read moredaughter. She has been so calm and understanding with both me and the baby. She is so nurturing, I think she might actually be a baby whisperer. She has been wonderful with communicating and has suggested several remedies, medicine and things we could try. It was so nice to know that I had someone here to help me and just be there for both me and my child. Cherrelle really has a special gift. As a first time parent I felt very uncertain and nervous about being alone. Cherrelle quiets those worries and allows you to get rest and be the best parent you can be. I can honestly say that her help was so crucial to me and my road to recovery from my C-section. I appreciate her and her warm personality and care so much. Thank you, Alissa Brown

I had a terrible experience with my first birth in the hospital with standard care. I wanted to be…read morein the care of someone that aligned with what I wanted and believed in. Angela, was wonderful, warm, welcoming and caring. She encouraged me and gave advice that was so helpful! I wouldn't be where I'm at in my mom journey without her! Every time I met Angela was important to me, it was like meeting with an old friend or sister. I was especially thankful for the advice for the breastfeeding book she recommended-that was life-changing. My time in the hospital visits were stressful and traumatic, so, the hands-on care that was provided was a breath of fresh air. I felt heard and seen. Even when I had to go to the hospital, Angela was an advocate by my side. Her advice and visits during the postpartum phase were wonderful as well. I felt like Angela took the time to care for me AND my baby. With midwifery care, the baby is a patient as well. There is less unnecessary poking and prodding and much more love and attention. With the standard care given by doctors, they are often cold and even demeaning. They look at things backwards and always act as if you or your baby is sick and dying until proven otherwise. I wasn't able to have a home birth, but still had a vbac in the hospital, I didn't give up and I found strength and resilience that I didn't have previously. I was able to really listen to my body and do what I and baby needed.

Angela was such a dream to have at our birth. She is knowledgeable in all areas and made us feel…read morefully confident and comfortable throughout the entire pregnancy and birth. She is thorough, patient and kind. We we're blessed to have her as our midwife. We couldn't recommend her more to anyone considering a homebirth. Best decision ever. Angela, thank you for everything!!!!

It's 8pm on a Saturday night and I am relaxing on my couch having a glass of wine. My little man…read morehas been sleeping in his crib since he fell asleep there, ON HIS OWN, SEVEN minutes after we put him down - without a peep. You read that right. Since I have such ample time, this review will be a long one. I gave you fair warning. I'm not so rigid to think or expect that every night will unfold like tonight. There will be teeth! walking! talking! more regressions to come. However, a month after starting this process, it has become a reasonable reality for me to expect that on more days/nights rather than not (meaning NAPS and bedtime), he will go to sleep. It is a work in progress, but Dahlia guided us through it with the confidence and clarify we ourselves needed to provide to our son for the process to work. The backstory: At 11 weeks old, my son morphed from our lovely sleeping newborn waking twice a night to waking EVERY HOUR, needing to be soothed back to sleep...while sleeping in our bed. As the weeks dragged on, it became clear he was not going to outgrow this hiccup in an amount of time that would preserve my sanity (or marriage lol), and things were snowballing from bad to dreadful (more on that below). He eventually settled on a pattern of waking 4-7 times per night; however, he started having negative sleep associations to most every soothing trick in the book. I won't waste time listing such strategies or the gimmicks I bought on Amazon. Well-meaning folks always shared their soothing strategies. Well, if you can envision it, we tried it. Don't start to tell me about white noise and black out shades. Eventually, NOTHING WORKED except the boob. So sleep - meaning all naps and bedtime plus the night wake ups - became an hour long battle with raging, screaming, kicking, tears. All of which did not guarantee an outcome of sleep in the end! This was a vicious cycle on repeat at least 4 times daily which went on for almost two months (give or take some days where baby was so exhausted he slept well for a night or two). On top of this, I had impending abdominal and oral surgeries. Just icing on the cake. We knew we had to sleep train. After pouring through blogs and books about the various sleep training techniques and studies, I still had reservations (and extreme anxiety subjecting my baby to this), and needed someone to lead me through its ups and downs. Alright I'll be honest - sleep training is mostly down. It is painful. Gutwrenchingly PTSD painful if your baby is anything like mine. Enter Dahlia. She is honest, positive, supportive, respectful, and above all, will use her knowledge to SEE YOU THROUGH IT. She makes herself available and genuinely wants to help you. I cannot thank her enough and I definitely promise you will not get that from a blog. So dread. I used to DREAD naps and bedtime. The clock would hit 5:30pm and my heart would sink a little. My soul would wail a sad song. Now, I think about the time I can spend writing long reviews and blogging while he's sleeping. And the biggest plus? The little man wakes up RELAXED and RESTED and happy to see me. THANK YOU DAHLIA!

Dahlia is the BEST! We hired her for 3 months of postpartum work, which is no small task with…read moretwins! She was so caring, nurturing, and gentle with our babies, her experience was only outweighed by her sweetness and profound gift for "twinning". I feel so lucky to have had her work with us, she taught us (first-time parents) so much, from swaddling to bathing to infant massage! Every morning when Dahila arrived it was a ray of sunshine and positive energy, my babies responded so well to her songs, her feeding techniques, and her cuddles. We were so sad to say goodbye to her when it was time, and are almost jealous of the next family that gets to work with her! :) :)

I would not recommend this nurse to treat or help with anything…read more Horrible bedside manner, does not return calls, as she is "busy seeing patients" I thought I was a patient. Lauren Lockwood was the only practitioner avaiable to see me, as Dr. Senior was busy delivering babies. I saw her regarding a medical termination, and during our visit, I informed her of my 2 misacrriages and how incredibly painful the experience was. I asked for her help with pain management. Well, not only did she fall short on this by underprescribing medication, she also NEVER returned any of my phone calls when I started to experience pain. I called the office starting at 9:30 am, then again at 12:15, notifying the office that I am in uncontrollable pain (since it is the worst during the first 48 hours), and then again at 3pm, in which they insisted they sent the prescriptions to the pharmacy. After going to the pharmacy two times, there were no records of anything being sent, even after the pharmacist told the office NOTHING WAS EVER SENT. It is now 4pm, and my fourth phone call to the office. I have been in excruciating pain all day. NO CALL BACK FROM AN ATTENDING PHYSCIAN OR LAUREN LOCKWOOD! The only person I spoke to all day was the poor receptionist. I have been a long standing patient of Dr. Senior, and have referred multiple patients to her. Let's just say I will no longer be going back. Even though I have a follow up appointment for clearance. There are too many good physicians and NP's out there who would be happy to have new patients, and treat them well. At this point, I would probably get better service at planned parenthood. Your reviewer is 44 yr.old, 2 kids, BSN, 20 years in the medical field.

I recently worked with Lauren at a birth. I am a doula. She was warm, comforting and encouraging…read more While not exactly a home birth experience, it was as hands off as possible, while still in a hospital setting. I highly recommend her if a natural labor in a hospital is your goal. Or even if it's not! Who would't want such a caring provider?

I can't say enough good things about Awakenings! I hired Esther for a home birth after a rather…read moretraumatic hospital birth with my previous child. I felt supported and held throughout the entire process. Esther took time to educate me on homeopathics to help alleviate headaches and helped me navigate a scary situation when my genetic testing came back with some red flags. I felt she went above and beyond when it came to helping with stuff like this that I could tell she was passionate about. I always felt that she was in my corner and when it came time for the birth (my third) she was able to give me space to birth the way I wanted to while being all hands on deck to help my husband catch our baby. It was a really healing experience for me. Postpartum she was very involved and paid close attention to details, even flagging some concerning heart rate stuff with my newborn that I was able to take to my pediatrician and have assessed. Truly full of gratitude for Esther and the experience I was able to have while guided by her professionalism, wisdom, and skill.

Esther was such a blessing to our family and to the entry of our youngest son. She is deeply…read moreknowledgeable and will give you a balanced amount of information around all the decisions that need to be made during pregnancy and beyond. We highly recommend Esther to midwife babies into this world. She's such a gift!

I don't think words can truly describe how amazing this woman is. Charlee is such an amazing person…read morefirst and foremost. I had the pleasure and honor to get to work with her for not one of my babies, but two of them. I had given birth January 2023, she came to our house for every appointment. She listened to all of our concerns. She was so thorough and in depth. Never missing a single thing during any appointment. We Explained to her that we wanted something to where we could be the most hands-on during our birth, and that is exactly what we got. Throughout the entire pregnancy, she educated us. Answering all of my questions. She is so funny, but also extremely professional and truly just a joy to get to work with. When I went into labor, she was there a heartbeat more ready than we were we were taking our time we had two other kids lol. She always asked for permission before doing anything. I felt like I was being treated like a queen. After giving birth, she was so accommodating so attentive. She came to do checks on myself and the baby she always asked before even touching the baby. She respects everybody boundaries. I got the honor to become her friend and kept in contact giving her updates on our baby that she helped bring into this world. Then we got pregnant again and knew that we wanted to have a free birth. But we still knew that we wanted prenatal care and we only knew of one place we wanted to go to get that.. Charlee helped guide us to make sure that we got our blood work done during pregnancy, our anatomy scan, and even made sure that baby was headed down a few weeks before giving birth. Unfortunately, we were moving to Texas to give birth, so there was no way for her to be our midwife. But she helped us by making sure we had a healthy pregnancy the entire way. We made it to full-term and gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl. After giving birth, though my placenta was being a little stubborn. I gave Charlee a call on FaceTime and she picked up it was a little late into the evening and she still answered! (That's because she's truly that awesome) she helped by simply telling me to stand up and cough and sure enough that did the trick! Talk about being such an amazing midwife over the phone in a whole other state. The financial aspect of it all she works with you. Some people are concerned that they want to have a homebirth with the midwife, but they can't afford it. She can come up with a payment plan for you and let me tell you 100% worth it with Charlee , if you were to invest your money anywhere for the birth of your baby every single time I would put my money into Charlee. The medical aspect of it all let me tell you when you see the bag that she brings to every appointment. She is ready for the impossible. I swear she's got like a mini hospital in that bag. The all natural aspect if you are somebody who is trying to avoid as much medical stuff as possible, she's also your go to woman. She will give you different stretches and things you can do to avoid medication pain relief etc The overall aspect of Charlee as a midwife is, she's the woman you want to go to . She's the one you want on your team. I'm so lucky that I get to share this intimate photo of my most recent birth just to show how amazing she is and how much she cares about her past, current, and future clients. Thank you so much, Charlee for everything you've done for me and my family . Words truly just don't express how amazing you are not only as a midwife, but as a person.

This is my second birth, but my first being a home birth. I didn't know what to expect but felt…read moresupport since the beginning to the end. Charlee is nothing but incredible in the care she provides and lets natural really take its course, very through, nurturing, trusting, and takes her time with you through the whole journey. I do have to pay out of pocket, but it's worth every penny for the experience. My toddler who was 23 months at the time was able to witness her little sister being born, and i strongly believe to this day, it's the reason why she's so in love with her sister. My husband even got to catch our baby with his hands, that's something you can't always say happen. The whole experience is what made it worth it, Charlee is the experience. My pregnancy, labor, and delivery were all smooth and calm, not once did i feel stressed. I even had a scare with some bleeding, but Charlee made sure i got all i needed for piece of mind, and getting checked out. I keep telling everyone how amazing it all was and i will be doing my next birth with Charlee, she's family. I highly recommend, if you can do a home birth, it is a must do, & Charlee & her team are the ones to do it with. Thank you for the amazing care, journey, and the experience you gave to my family and i, there aren't words to express how grateful we are, all great things to feel and say.

Ellen and her team of apprentices (at the time, Jaime and Kristina) are the epitomy of what…read moreguidance "for women, by women" should be during a natural birthing experience. That's what "midwife" means. And that's what Wombservice Midwifery is! We received care from them during the last two months of my pregnancy (as I'd just moved to the area...hmph, nesting!), our successful homebirth, and post-partum, and I couldn't have chosen a better option. None of the other midwives we'd interviewed in both Santa Cruz and the SF Bay Area "felt" right. None had the mixture of medical expertise, gentleness, presence, kindness, openness, and "can do" attitude that Ellen and her team have. I received hours upon hours of person-to-person (even text messaging!) support in our planned prenatal appointments. I felt nurtured, deeply cared for, and in experienced, sound, professional hands. We discussed back-up plans and she honored all my preferences. I'd say there was even a bit of emotional counseling in there for us as a soon-to-be-parents-couple. :) During the birth, I felt held, nurtured, and in the midst of pain and terror (and joy and ecstacy), they "had" me. Between the 3 of them and my partner, they all "had" me. I FELT SAFE. Jaime breathed EVERY single contraction with me, with her hand on me, moaning with me. I lived 4 blocks from the hospital but did not need to go. I pushed for 4 hours with an arm coming out first but DID NOT TEAR. Ellen's use of olive oil is second to none!! ;) And when my baby needed a little help breathing when he came out, my midwife team's medical expertise exceeded anything I'd ever expected. Quick, efficient, caring, and safe...they helped our baby off to a positive, healthy start. Post-partum, I received care & encouragement that every new mother would die for!! From spending 4 hours after the birth to clean up, check on me and the baby, and give us helpful guidance...to the many post-partum appointments that come with a midwife (and not a hospital birth...not in the same way...not nearly so personal or emotionally supportive!)....Our new little family were well taken care of!! My boy is now 12 months old (healthy and shining and bright!!) and when we have another baby we will DEFINITELY hire Ellen and Wombservice Midwifery as our midwife team AGAIN. (I can even still text Ellen with questions and she always makes herself available...I don't know how she does it! I *highly* recommend these ladies to anyone wanting natural, extensive, thorough, gentle, loving, encouraging, medically-sound guidance during the prenatal, birth, and post-partum phases of a woman's childbearing year!! PS - Ellen's apprentice, Jaime, and Kristina (who was an apprentice at the time) run a business called Placenta Apothecary - Jaime dehydrated my placenta the day after our birth and made it into Chinese medicine, tea, and prepared the umbilical cord as a keep-sake!

I was just emailing to recommend Ellen and her midwifery team to a friend and went on their website…read moreand it seriously makes me want to have another baby!! Ah.... to go through the process with these incredible women again - to be able to see them on a regular basis has enhanced my life, my husband's life and the lives that they helped usher in - our two daughters! So much! Ellen and her team helped us with our first pregnancy - which we lost - they were completely there for us and helped us feel safe to go through the intense process of miscarrying at home. They then were our primary providers for our pregnancy with our daughter, Zoe, and helped guide us through a very challenging 3 day labor - they were right there the entire time and helped us transfer to the hospital when it became clear we needed that and were there for another 1 1/2 days in the hospital with us advocating and supporting us. We ended up having a very necessary cesarian birth that with their support and care was really a beautiful experience. They helped to keep both the baby and me safe. And then they helped us have the most triumphant birth of our little baby Stella - at home - a home birth after C Section!! I love these people and am so grateful for them.