Pamela spent over 2 hours with us discussing policies and options. We talked about my health, the progress of the pregnancy, took my stats and she even did an internal examination of my pelvic structure. All went really well!

Shoot I even gained another pound and a half between Thursday and Saturday, I weighed in at almost 112! My blood pressure was normal (100/60) and she agrees that my weight gain of about 12 pounds over the course of 16 weeks of pregnancy is great for my body type and is also normal in pregnancy.

I told her about how upset my OBGYN made me about the weight thing. She said that my OBGYN was most likely just commenting on my weight without taking my body type and personal history in to account. Besides, she agreed with the info in my book that says 14 pounds weight gain is typically the average gain for the end of the 2nd trimester. She also noted that those numbers are only averages and that typically smaller women gain more.

We talked about lots of diet and nutrition stuff, got many pointers on what I need to eat and why. I even asked her about the possibility of “being too small” for a natural birth. She did an internal exam to see how wide and deep my pelvis was and confirmed that I had ample room to birth a baby naturally.

Apparently the visible size of our hips and pelvis from the outside does not indicate the size of the pelvis cavities internally. She even had a pelvis (one of those educational skeleton thingies) to show me and she went over all the measurements of mine compared to the pelvis she was showing me.

We talked about potential complications in natural birth that usually warrant a c-section, things like breach positioning, the shoulders getting stuck or multiple births. She assured me that they have delivered babies in all these situations naturally and that it is no challenge for them, since I am already in their care.

I guess they do turn people away who show up months before delivery wanting a more complicated natural birth (VBAC, breach or multiples) at The Farm who have not gone through prenatal care with them. They are very particular about prenatal care, they want you to have proper attention during pregnancy (even if it is though your local doctor) and they want to thoroughly assess all your risk factors before agreeing to do a natural birth with you. It is not all about making money for them, the want to do what is safest for you and your baby so that means turning people away sometimes.

We also learned that Pamela has EMT training and that all the midwives in the area also participate in the hospitals neonatal intensive care unit training course as a means to further their education. The Farm also has LPN’s and RN’s on staff to, that was a fun tidbit of info for us.

Also, CPM’s are legal in Tennessee and The Farm midwives have a great working relationship with staff at the regional hospital so in the case of emergency (or if the mom simply requests it) there is no hesitation in transporting to the hospital to finish the delivery.

We toured a birthing cabin despite the pouring rain and learned that each room is equip with oxygen, baby warmers and all the essentials. They’ll even analyze my child’s cord blood after delivery to determine if the RhoGam shot is even necessary (which they also have on site to administer.

Both N and I were super pleased with Pamela and are sure birthing at The Farm is right for us. We aren’t required to travel down for anymore prenatal appointments but we are welcome to if we want and are able to work it in to the schedule.

They are working with us to make things convenient with regards to how far we live from The Farm. Pamela will be chatting with us once a month by phone following each prenatal appointment with our local doctor to get updates on the progress of the pregnancy.

We are also forwarding my prenatal charts from the OBGYN to Pamela so she has all the most up to date info on my health and the pregnancy developments. It looks like birthing at The Farm is the direction we are going, for sure and we are so relieved! It really is the best of 2 worlds for us and our birthing needs!

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