When I found out I was pregnant with my second child, I knew I wanted Rowen to be my midwife. She was my childbirth educator and doula for my first birth and was by far the best of all of the birthing professionals I worked with during that whole experience.
My entire prenatal, labor, and birth process was so different with Rowen. She practices a midwifery model of care that focuses on treating the mother as a capable and intelligent adult who is in charge of her own care, with the midwife there to provide expertise, information, and support. She was also fantastic about welcoming my husband and daughter into the pregnancy and birth process, and her standard visits are an hour so she can really check in with you about how things are going. Contrary to a lot of assumptions that a homebirth with a midwife is just for crazy fringe people who are anti medical science, I found after heavily researching all of my options that the model of care offered by Rowen and other midwives like her was by far the most evidence-based available to me as a woman with a low risk pregnancy in my area.
Rowan wanted me to labor wherever and however I was the most comfortable, and she provides use of an inflatable birthing pool for women who want to labor or deliver in the water (I did both). My water broke early this time, and if I'd been in a hospital with practitioners insisting on unnecessary routine internal exams and/or a policy of c-secting at 24 hours, I would almost certainly have ended up being pressured or forced to have interventions that I didn't have to have with Rowen, either unnecessarily or because of the higher risk of infection in hospitals. Rowen and her assisting midwife, Hope, just monitored my temperature, didn't do any unneeded exams, and reassured me that I wasn't on an arbitrary clock. Rowen helped me with positioning exercises to get labor going, and after 6-7 hours of real contractions, I had a very straightforward, safe delivery of a second little girl. My postpartum recovery was much easier, and the entire process, both clinically and in terms of my and my family's experience, was just night and day compared to my first birth.
Rowen also works with a specialist who helps file and process insurance claims and has a great record of helping families get their insurance to cover all or part of Rowen's fees, which are much cheaper than working with an obstetrician even though she spends significantly more time with her clients both prenatally and in labor. Ultimately, I can't recommend Rowen highly enough. read more