I had the home birth experience of my dreams thanks to Katrina at Pathways Midwifery! I highly recommend her to anyone considering a home birth. She is impressively knowledgeable, experienced, professional, kind, patient, and just generally amazing. She attended the birth of my first child in May 2020 and I absolutely plan to call her up for all future pregnancies!
For context, I had originally planned to give birth in a birth center because I wanted a natural birth but with it being my first pregnancy, I thought a home birth would be a little too overwhelming. Well, enter COVID in my third trimester...and I started to explore the possibility of a switch to home birth. I scheduled a phone call with Katrina just to explore the idea of switching to her care and home birth at 32 weeks. She was so very patient and answered all my questions about prenatal care, the logistics of home birth, emergency preparation, etc while putting ZERO pressure on me to make the switch. I could tell she genuinely wanted me to have the best birth experience for ME, regardless of whether it was with her or in a birth center. I left the conversation SUPER impressed with her knowledge and experience and with the prospect of home birth. After taking a few days to think it over, we made the switch at about 33 weeks.
All the prenatal visits took place at home, which was SUPER cool, especially in COVID times when its such a pain to go to a medical facility. Katrina took above-and-beyond COVID precautions, always wearing a mask, washing her hands several times during each visit, and even changing clothes between clients. She even did all the standard blood and urine work from home, taking samples during home visits and sending them in...super convenient.
The thing I most liked about Katrina's care was that she always laid out my options, giving me evidence-based background information, then let ME make decisions about MY care and MY birth. I never felt any pressure from her to do anything a certain way. She always respected my opinions and preferences and let me decide. You will be hard-pressed to find care like this in a hospital or even a birth center...and now that I've experienced it, I refuse to settle for anything less!
In short, I had a very smooth, fast! (2 hours...), and beautiful home birth. I'm convinced it went so well in large part because I was so relaxed and confident in Katrina's care leading up to the birth. I knew that whatever happened, Katrina was prepared with the knowledge, equipment, and and experience to handle it, including the awareness and readiness to transfer to the hospital if it were to become necessary. Everything about the birth was better than I could have ever imagined. Katrina and her team gave us such a personalized experience, and they even left the house cleaner than when they arrived (a small thing to be sure, but it was so helpful!).
Feel free to message me directly via Yelp if you're considering Pathways Midwifery and want to chat about my experience. Katrina is top notch and home birth is amazing...happy to share and help other women have the birth of their dreams. read more