Hummingbird Midwifery — Local services in Oakland

(cont’d from Trish’s review above) I called Morgan; she was on vacation and barely had cell service. Evaly was also out of town. They provided a backup midwife, so after my bad connection with Morgan, I called her. She instructed me to eat something sugary and do a kick count. She had to walk me through it because it wasn’t something the midwives ever talked to me about. When an hour later I still felt no movements, she told me to go to L&D. I did, and that’s when we found out that we had lost our beautiful daughter at 35 weeks. Utterly heart wrenching. I had to go through with an induction the next day, knowing she was already gone. She was born about 40 hours later. There was nothing obvious wrong with her, the placenta, or the cord, and the autopsy, genetic testing, and pathology all came back clear.

While we were at the hospital, I was tested for COVID and found positive. My doctor ultimately said that she couldn’t rule out whether it played a role in my daughter’s death (she’d seen similar cases). At the very least, it made an already wrenching situation much more complex, because they had to ensure they weren’t going to transmit the virus to any of their other patients.

With the help of specialists, we later learned that our daughter suffered from IUGR. Had we caught it at our last appointment or gotten that growth ultrasound in time, we could have delivered a little early and she would very likely still be here. But she is gone, and with her, my whole heart. It’s absolutely the most horrifying and tragic ending imaginable. We thought we were doing everything right. Ultimately, we put our trust in people who let us down, who weren’t open-minded enough to take our doctor’s thoughts and advice seriously. Their ego and hubris cost us everything. I believe this outcome was heartbreaking for them, too, but they go home at night and hug their kids. My daughter is gone forever.

In the immediate aftermath, Morgan came to visit me at home. I was processing out loud, trying to piece things together. I mentioned the FH measurements and she paused, got an uncomfortable smile on her face, and said, “Yea, that’s why it’s helpful to just have one person do the measurements throughout your entire pregnancy.” That hit me hard — veiled in that comment was the fact that I had had concurrent care, as if she was laying the blame at my feet. She took no accountability for having passed me around within their practice, eliminating any possibility for consistency in who was taking my measurements. Not to mention the fact that my OB was the only one who had caught on that we might be lagging behind, and they just refused to listen to her.

They did return our birthing fee, but did not refund the appointments we had with them. Whatever, it was less than $1000 in total which is financially significant for us, but I have been so deep in grief that I didn’t bother. I told myself at the time that it was fair because they had indeed spent that time with us. In retrospect, I believe it shows a lack of accountability and compassion that has me shaking my head. Did they technically have to return that money? No. Would it have nevertheless been the right thing to do, given the circumstances? Eh.

After a truly gutting year, I finally decided to write to Morgan and Evaly. The email I received from Evaly was difficult to swallow. The tone was pat, and the closest she came to taking any accountability was to say, “I try to incorporate the learnings from every client and birth experience into my practice.”

Perhaps this is a grieving mother’s folly, but I strongly believe that my daughter would be alive today if our symptoms had been taken seriously. Everything I have learned in the aftermath suggests that IUGR babies can fare well with NICU support once delivered. Regardless, we never got the chance to find out. We never got to see her open her eyes and gaze at us, we never heard her cry or laugh. An entire year has now elapsed. As I look forward to the remaining years of my life, I cannot find her there. It is an unmitigated,...

I have gone back and forth many times about whether to write this review. I ultimately decided that my experience deserves to see the light of day. I will say upfront that it is a tragic story of loss, so please keep that in mind if you decide to continue reading.

We started seeing Morgan and Evaly while doing concurrent OB care. We had perfect appointments every time, though between Morgan, Evaly, and their intern, there was ongoing confusion about my fundal height measurements. They passed it off, saying that some babies measure small, that they were well aware of the discrepancies amongst them in how they measure, and that they had all talked about it and were not worried.

I was highly attuned to my daughter and always felt a lot of movement, but as we entered the third trimester, I noticed her movements diminishing. When I shared this at our appointments, neither Morgan nor Evaly asked more questions about it. They simply reassured me that it was normal and that the baby was probably running out of room or had changed positions with movements directed more inward. I now understand that the diminished movements, along with the question about fundal height, should have been an immediate red flag for them. It wasn’t, and this pattern went unchecked for several critical weeks.

We saw them through the summer (our daughter was due in early September), which coincided with many trips and vacations on their end. This meant that we did not have continuity of care with a single provider. It seemed this was normal course of business for them, so again, we tried not to worry and were reassured that they stayed on the same page about everything. However, it didn’t feel great to be constantly handed from one person to the other, especially so late in my pregnancy.

In late July, well into my third trimester, I went back to see my OB because I had a very minor skin issue and wanted to get a derm referral. While there, she noticed that my fundal measurements were lagging and ordered a growth ultrasound. I emailed Morgan and Evaly directly following that appointment, and we agreed to talk more at our next appointment with Morgan two days later.

When we arrived, we were met by Evaly, who told us that Morgan had contracted COVID. She reassured us that, although they had met earlier that day, they practiced distancing. When I brought up my OB’s concerns, she seemed to have a chip on her shoulder that I had gone to see her. They had encouraged me to stop concurrent care some weeks prior (which I eventually did) and this information was treated as an unwelcome intrusion. She did her own measurement, reported it as 2cm higher than my OB’s, and said that, although I was on the small side, we were within the margin of error.

When I asked her what we might attribute this to, she said a common problem might be the mother not eating enough. This didn’t sit well with me because I truly was doing everything I could to eat well and stay healthy. I pushed back, and she just kind of looked at me blinking with a slight smile on her face. I relented, and asked if she was worried. She gave a decisive “no” and, with a tone of impatience, said, “Well if you’re worried, WE can order the ultrasound for you.” This confused me – if she had my best interests at heart and was truly looking after my daughter, why would it matter who ordered what? She made me feel foolish for asking, so I just said that I trusted her and that if she didn’t think I should worry, I would do my best not to worry.

A few days later I became very sick with COVID. This was a surprise because the only two places I had been were to my OB and to see Evaly. I can’t know if I caught it at the OB or from the midwives (incubation period suggests the latter), but I was extremely sick for about a week.

Because I was so sick, I wasn’t moving around a lot and noticed significantly diminished movements from my daughter. A few days after my symptoms ameliorated, I didn’t feel her move at all for several hours. (part 2 below on my...

How do I express what being cared for by Hummingbird midwifery meant to me? Life changing sounds hyperbolic and yet, I can’t think of a better word. I am a midwife myself who started in homebirth and moved to the hospital. There is a crazy tension that exists between home and hospital birth midwifery. This weird idea that hospital birth is normal and legitimate, homebirth fringey and less secure. And yet, that was not what I experienced. Immediately after my first prenatal visit with Morgan I was impressed. She was knowledgeable, professional, devoid of the woo woo things I had worried about, and on an energetic level she felt unshakable. As a midwife, dubiously sussing out another midwife I was smitten immediately. A homebirth midwife who felt solid and grounded in evidence based practice? Thank you Jesus! Did I birth at home? Kinda? Three days laboring at home, a transfer to the hospital, 24 hours on pitocin, four hours of pushing, and ultimately a c-section. That was my birth of my sweet boy. In the hospital they chalked it up to “nurse curse.” But in my heart it was a wild experience of opening and yielding and meeting the love of my life, my son Heron. All the while supported by the midwifery care of Hummingbird midwifery. And let me tell you ladies! If you are on here looking for reviews about the perfect homebirth, I have something else to say. I’m a midwife who has attended over 1,000 births in and out of the hospital. But when I say choose a homebirth midwife, do it for the postpartum care, not the birth. If it’s juicy and you catch your baby in the tub like I dreamed of, amazing. But if it’s hard, and they had to cut your body open to get your very determined baby (who was persistently posterior) out, you will thank the heavens that you chose homebirth, more specifically Hummingbird Midwifery. Because no amount of money can quantify or qualify what it is to be cared for in your healing and becoming of a mama like the love and support of Hummingbird...