birthing inn/loudon midwives experience?

JVo · 02-01-2007, 03:45 PM

Hi all,
I am exploring birth options with midwives and would love to hear about anyone's experience at the birthing inn with the Loudon midwifery practice. I live in Frederick and am expecting my first at the end of June, so this is all new to me.

Thanks for your help,
Joi

nikkihoi · 02-02-2007, 07:37 AM

Hi Joi!

I don't have any personal birthing experiance at the Birthing Inn but I did work on a project there with one of the CNM's, Michelle Davidson and a few of her staff members. They were all very nice and the facilities were very nice too. They say they take a holistic approach and my impression was you can birth the way you want to as long as you are not "high risk". They are overseen by OB's so I don't know how limited they are. What I mean is, "are you automaticly considered 'high risk' b/c you are 35 or over, end of story?
I guess it depends what you are looking for but they maybe worth interviewing. Michelle was really cool to work with from a buisness stand point.
Good Luck!

MomToKandE · 02-04-2007, 02:24 PM

I love LCM! Wendy Dotson was my midwife with ds but all of the ladies seem wonderful. I find them to be great about giving information and then stepping back to let you decide. I found that they were happy to do as much or as little as I wanted. If I wanted my cervix checked at a prenatal appointment they'd be happy to do it, otherwise they were happy to skip it.

I chose to spend only one night in the hospital and they were fine with that. They even said that if everything looked fine with both me and baby that they'd discharge me after 8 hours if I wanted.

The hospital staff was very nice. The L&D nurses were happy to leave me alone to do my thing. I didn't really use the lactation consultants at all so I can't comment on them. We did not circ ds and I didn't get any pressure about that.

The hospital facility was nice and all of the postpartum rooms are private. (a big plus for me after having a shared room when dd was born!) The food was awful but if that's the worst thing I can think of that's not bad.

At the time ds was born LCM was the only practice I could find that would guarantee a midwife for a hospital birth. (a few others had midwives on staff but they may not be on call when you went into labor) I don't believe that they do homebirths but if you're interested in that I know there are some around that do.

alysmommy2004 · 02-05-2007, 12:00 AM

I don't know anything about the Loudoun Midwifery Practice, but I did give birth to my DD at The Birthing Inn w/an OB.

I don't know if I would give birth at Loudoun again. I was one week past my EDD, having contrax every three minutes, and had just drove there in a snow storm at 2a.m. They tried to send me home, but I refused to go until they got ahold of my OB.

I was admitted and moved through labor very quickly, but it wasn't quick enough for them. At 6a.m. I was 8cm and they broke my water and then told me to start pushing.

At 8a.m. they let me have a break so I asked for an epidural b/c I couldn't handle it anymore. At 12p.m. (That's right, NOON) they finally told me that my DD was stuck. I knew at that point something was wrong, but I was soooo drugged up that I couldn't tell you what my name was. At 12:30 they decided to try the vacuum before resorting to a C/S. Fortunately they got my DD out, but not w/o tearing, then an episiotomy. Well, I won't go into more detail about that....

When I was in post partum some of the nurses were awful. I couldn't walk and one actually screamed at me to get up and move.

I have since moved to Maryland, but while visiting my parents while pregnant with my DS I started having a lot of low pressure and contrax. I ended up going to the ER there and they refused to treat me b/c I was 19 weeks and 6 days pregnant. You have to be 20 to be seen by TBI. The ER Dr sent me back home with a Rx for codeine. No one ever checked my cervix or did any monitoring or ultrasound.

I went home and saw my Dr and found out that I had Olighydraminos (low amniotic fluid) and I was 50% effaced and 2cm dilated.

Also, Two years after my DD was born and I had pre-payed they sent me an invoice for $2400. Another time I fought with them for 6 weeks trying to get my patient records. They insisted I come down in person, even though I was on bedrest I did so. They still didn't help.

I'm sure being seen by a MW would be much better than an OB. Just as a warning a lot of staff at Loudoun are not that great.