"Magic at the Bentley Midwifery Birthing Centre"

I feel incredibly lucky and grateful to have received the exemplary care provided by the MBC throughout my first pregnancy. Being a midwife myself I knew continuity of care was important, but even my own high expectations were completely exceeded by the excellent quality of care this service provides. 

From 6 weeks pregnant I was provided with every aspect of care I needed for a low risk pregnancy. This included my appointments, blood tests, non invasive screening and ultrasounds.  I had complete trust and faith in my midwife Liz to support me with navigating pregnancy choices. I knew the referral pathways should our pregnancy encounter any issues, and trusted she would advise me if things became abnormal at any time. We were fortunate enough to not encounter any issues during pregnancy and this meant we were eligible to birth at the MBC. 

Funnily enough, at the start of pregnancy I was not fussed on a MBC birth itself and just wanted the model of care this service provided. However, by the end of pregnancy my attitude had changed completely and birthing in the safe sanctuary of the MBC became very important to me. I knew this environment would protect me from the many interventions on offer in normal hospital settings (i.e. epidural) and provide my body with the calm and safe environment that a physiological labour needs to progress.

We went into labour on a Monday evening and arrived at the MBC at 2am on a Tuesday morning. I was very relieved to have access to the gas and laboured for hours in the shower. The midwife Sky was incredible. Calmly present and providing all necessary checks to enable safety (checking our babies heart rate, my observations, monitoring my water loss) whilst also giving me the space my partner and I needed to navigate our labour privately.

Liz arrived at 7am and I felt so relieved when she walked in the door. She listened to me and supported me beautifully during the last few hours of labour. I truly believe the safety I felt from her presence enabled my body to crack on and do what it needed to do. After what felt like an eternity (which in fact was a very normal amount of time) I was ready to push and hopped into the pool. I loved how easily the pool enabled me to change positions and was once again kept at ease by the presence of my highly skilled midwives.

By this time Carli had joined us and I was very grateful for her being our second midwife. Pushing was really hard for me mentally, which wasn't a surprise once our 4170g bub came out. I remember thinking in the midst of it I wanted to give up and wished I was in a hospital where someone could perform an instrumental birth. I was exhausted and over it, and looked over at my midwives and knew this wasn't an option. I had to dig deep and kept pushing despite the intense pressure and stretching and was so so proud to birth our beautiful baby girl all on my own.

I was so proud of myself and knew that choosing the MBC had given me the environment I needed to have the birth I wanted. Our beautiful baby girl got everything I had hoped for, adequate delayed cord clamping, uninterrupted skin-skin, a long breastfeed, no exposure to strong opioid pain killers, no sore head from an instrumental birth. I know this helped her transition well and unsurprisingly we were ready for discharge at 5 hours post birth. Liz had sorted me out, sutured my small tear, checked my placenta and performed all my observations. Our friends and family thought we were crazy for going home so early, but I felt completely calm and was grateful for my own bed and not having to be separated from my partner. I knew Liz was only a phone call away if we hit a crisis and she would be out again within 24 hours to check on us all. 

Postnatally the care continued to exceed expectations. Standard hospital care normally only goes to 5 days - so I felt completely spoilt with our 6 weeks. Liz was amazing, checked Charlie's weights and made sure I was going ok both physically and emotionally. I had a close call with Mastitis around week 2-3 and was very grateful to have access to my midwife for an antibiotics script instead of having to deal with trying to get into a GP on short notice.

On our discharge visit recently I felt so sad our journey has come to an end after realistically almost a full year, but I am so so grateful for this model, the service, the MBC and my midwife. I will be promoting this service to anyone who will listen and can't wait to see it expand more. I believe midwives are the ultimate primary care provider for women with low risk pregnancies and it is wonderful to see these models funded and running as they should. Well done RPBG!