KB's Birth Story | JE's Birth Story | A Grandmother's Perspective | Testimony 4

BT's Birth Story | VR's Birth Story | LQ's Birth Story | LB's Birth Story

WH's Birth Story | SB's Birth Story

There is no one that I would trust more to be there at the birth of our future children than Carrie Cobb. She knows what she is doing! During delivery, Carrie was calm and in control and that helped me to be okay when things weren’t progressing like I thought they should. She did not pressure me to do anything, only gently reminding me to listen to my body, and for that, I am so grateful because my body knew just what to do and it did a super job! I’m also thankful for all the encouragement and guidance she gave to my husband during that time. I will never forget her explaining to him that I had entered transition and couldn’t talk or walk through the contractions like I had been doing. Inside, I was thanking her over and over at that moment because I just couldn’t tell him that I couldn’t move! She was firm when she needed to be, and she made some quick decisions at the end that helped bring my baby girl safely into this world. I felt so strong and empowered! My body did THAT all on its own! Not only did my baby girl make a grand entrance in our living room, where I could comfortably relax in my own bed after all of that hard work, but when I finally got the energy to walk through the house, there wasn’t a TRACE of any of the mess associated with the birth—and I have nearly white carpets! Carrie knew how to protect my floors and my furniture and how to clean everything up afterwards so that I would not be worried about a mess. My husband and I had nothing to do but cuddle and love on our new bundle of joy, and we did just that! Carrie visited with us to check on me and the baby a few times over the next several weeks. I will always remember the tears in her eyes as she held Kaitlee on that second day after her birth, staring at her and just saying over and over, “Wow. She is so beautiful. Perfect.” It was as if Kaitlee was the first miracle she had ever seen, yet she has seen countless beautiful lives enter this world! That just shows Carrie’s heart so clearly. She loves what she does and each baby is so unique and special to her. As long as we are healthy with no complications, I will always use Carrie for any future children we have. Her attention and care to us and our baby, competency in her field, demeanor during delivery, and continued relationship postpartum have only strengthened my love for our midwife. Plus, sleeping in your own bed after all that work beats a hospital room with beeping monitors and nurses in and out any day! Home birth is FANTASTIC! (And so is Carrie!) :-)

--KB, happy mom

My precious youngest daughter, just nearly a year ago, was born at home with Carrie Cobb as our midwife. I really had the most wonderful experience throughout my pre-natal care, birth, and post partum period. I have never felt so supported, encouraged, and empowered during the time surrounding a birth as I did then. Carrie just loved on all of us, my older daughters included. They adore her and still ask when they get to see her again. She was wonderful at informing me of my options for care and the risks/benefits of those options, then supporting my decision. She was always so gentle and considerate when caring for me, and I felt completely confident in her skill and care as a midwife. As an added bonus, I think my home was cleaner after the birth than it was when she arrived for it! Just all around wonderful.

One of the best decisions I made for my family and I was to choose a midwife for my pregnancy and birth. Carrie provided amazing care to us throughout the entire pregnancy and continues to be there for us. She is a blessing to her profession and to families across the state.

We are forever grateful to Carrie and the birth team at Carrie Cobb Midwifery Services for bringing this little girl safely into the world. Not only is Carrie a great midwife but we consider her a part of our family! We chose to do home birth because of the one on one treatment from a caring, compassionate, Christian individual who had all of our wants and needs and made us a priority! We would choose Carrie a hundred times over and we are ever thankful that God placed her in our lives! Should you need a midwife look no further! After all midwives are just People helping People out of People! We love and appreciate you Carrie!

Carrie has been a huge blessing for our small family of four, Cristoval Ricardo Hayes born (2.5yrs) 11.08.12, and Cassian Antonio Hayes, born 2.19.15 (7mo) CJ and myself.

Carrie was with us as a doula for our first born, Rico, GOD SENT to say the least. I labored over 24hrs without sleep the first go round, and she was there with me every step of the way, especially when the goin GOT TUFF. I felt so comforted and reassured with her being there as she constantly checked our vitals, timed contractions, and carried on pleasant distracting conversations. Something stressed, overworked, and inexperienced daddy couldn't fathom doing at that time, lol. At the hospital she rocked it; being a perfect liaison between myself and the hospital staff making sure they respected and accommodated all my wishes to have a natural birth. Which believe me is no easy feat as they can be big bullies who are very much pro drugs mind you. When my strength and stamina grew low she literally pepped talked me into running around "like the hospital was on fire!"via Carrie's words, and held my hands as we did squats to get my dilation speeding up. From there she vocally coached me through the pushing process, preventing any tearing. I can hear her voice now saying, "look at your baby!," myself, "I can't see!," as she gently raised his head, giving me the motivation to finish the job.

For the second child, it was a no brainer, I knew at that point Carrie was the woman for the job and no one else. I started all my prenatal care with her from the beginning, and every time we met I heard my babies beautiful and healthy heart beat. Very much unlike regular doctor offices where you can feel rushed and treated like another number at times. When show time rolled round, Carrie once again won MVP. Only this time around we got to have her in her entirety as a midwife. I can only go on to say how blessed we are to have experienced just how a natural childbirth and home labor can be so amazingly euphoric. It's how God intended it to be! I can't express my feelings of appreciation and gratitude towards Carrie and her professional midwifery services, who I most definitely recommend to anyone considering at home or natural child birth. Please believe in yourself as a woman, and give yourself the gift of having Carrie at your side!

Just a thank you for creating a wonderful birth experience for my daughter. I had 4 hospital births so the home birth experience was entirely new. If I compared it to my own experiences I would have to say it was much better. You provided my daughter excellent prenatal care. I know she called, text and fb you frequently! That would not have happened in conventional care. You are truly professional and caring to your patients. The day of deliver you were great. I was able to be a part of the team that helped my daughter! I believe because of your instructions her labor was much shorter than it would have been in the hospital. I would now, looking back, gladly recommend a home birth to anyone not have a high risk pregnancy. I would highly recommend your services! Thank you for a wonderful experience.

I’ve been involved with all three of my children’s families using Carrie as their midwife.  So far we have been through four birth’s with another on the way.   So what is it like to be the grandmother at a home birth you ask?   

 

It has been a very unique experience to be at  the birth of your grandchild, and in some ways to be intimately involved.  I have been blessed to have an amazing relationship with my daughter in laws, and so when they were in labor they have allowed me to work with their husbands in helping them relax and go through the birthing process.   Just being part of the process, wiping brows, bringing drinks, and then seeing the birth so close, is an experience that is almost indescribable.  We have been fortunate that both grandmothers have been at almost all of these births, and it’s a bonding experience for the whole family.   Once we even Skyped a grandmother in so she could be part!  

 

For one birth we had to be at the hospital.  We had concerns about how this would be so different than at home, and it was.  But having Carrie there made such a difference in helping keep the experience as home like as possible.  She worked with the nurses and my son and daughter in law to help keep the process as much as possible the way that they had dreamed it would be.   

 

I have been very impressed with how Carrie balances the needs of the family and the desires of the family with a safe birth.  Through the four births we have had many different experiences, yet Carrie has been flexible through all of it.  Birth is special, natural, yet knowing that Carrie has a good, safe skill set allows me to relax and enjoy seeing a new life come into my heart.  

“ I don't think there is a higher level of trust than that between expectant parents and their caregiver. My most recent two children were cared for thru pregnancy and homebirth by Carrie Cobb, and if we are blessed with any more, they will be as well! The relationships Carrie develops with her clients are strong bonds of trust, communication, and mutual respect. She becomes a part of the family, while gently ushering in the smallest new member. I truly look back on my homebirths as the two best days of my life- not only for the gifts of my children, but for the entire positive experience that each day was in my life.”

“Our first child was born in a hospital under what was labeled as "midwifery care." That harrowing experience led us to seek a different decision for our subsequent children's births. When we met Carrie, we knew homebirth was the best choice for us. Although my body responded in the same negatively dramatic way after our first homebirth, Carrie knew just what to do and there was none of the panic or excessive interventions that had accompanied our "natural birth" in the hospital. I was with my new baby, nourished, supported, and allowed to make my own decisions and move at my own pace. Carrie's wisdom combined with the comforts of home made all the difference in keeping the birth of our baby a calm, healthy, and happy experience!”

“ Home Deliveries – the Best!!!! I have had four children all delivered at home by midwives. The first was in Texas, and the last three were here in Arkansas (delivered by Carrie Cobb). I have another due in October that I am planning to be delivered at home by Carrie Cobb as well."

“My experience with home births has been AWESOME! I wouldn’t do it any other way if I had a choice. The freedom and options you have with a home birth are wonderful. You are not pressured to have the baby within a certain amount of time, you do not have to stay on your back in bed hooked up to monitors, if everything is okay you can hold the baby as soon as it is born (even still connected to the umbilical cord) and I could go on and on.”

“Carrie Cobb is an excellent midwife too! She has become one of my closest friends through my deliveries. She is very knowledgeable and works very well with what we choose to do during the labor process. I would gladly and highly recommend her to anyone wanting to have a home birth.”

Three weeks ago I delivered a beautiful healthy baby girl. She was my first home birth and my first birth. I came to Carrie at about 12 weeks pregnant looking for something different than the traditional OB care. I had suffered a miscarriage and what I considered to be very inconsiderate care to say the least with doctors and the hospital. I have nothing but praise for Carrie, she is an amazing midwife and friend. She gave me very personal and tailored care to not only to my physical needs but my emotional needs also. She took my history about my fears seriously and helped me with each one. Over the last 9 months she has become near and dear to my heart.

I would recommend a home birth and Carrie Cobb Midwifery Services to anyone. I fully intend to use Carrie again with our next pregnancy, whenever the Lord should bless us again.

When I was in nursing school I had an instructor who opened my eyes to doulas, natural births, birthing centers and midwifery. As a student nurse I then spent time in labor and delivery units in local hospitals. It was here that I saw perfectly healthy and capable women coaxed into unnecessary interventions. Women were being told that their bodies did not know what they were doing. It was then I made the decision that I would look at having a natural home birth.

Once I became pregnant I did the research and began my quest to find a midwife that my fiancé, Jonah, and I would feel comfortable with. As a nurse and medical professional I did not want to be treated like a patient, I didn’t want to be just another appointment. I wanted to be talked to personally, without a computer screen between me and a provider. I met a few midwives before Carrie and although they were nice and capable I didn’t feel they were the ones for us. From the minute that Jonah and I walked into Carrie’s office we felt right at home. I would come to love my visits to this office. Carrie provided holistic care to not only me but my baby and Jonah. It was such a joy to see how excited Carrie got every time she heard my baby’s heart beating. My visits were more than a checkup; it was about my mental and emotional well-being. It was about my fears, concerns and questions about bringing a child into this world. We spoke about the labor in such a positive manner, because it is a positive experience.

The birth was everything that I had hoped for. Carrie allowed me to be involved in every decision and when I wasn’t sure she provided education and sources for me to research and make my own decisions. My sweet baby girl was brought into this world at our home, in a peaceful and warm environment. I was allowed to walk, change positions, eat and drink without restraint. I was allowed to labor in the tub without being connected to monitors and IVs. Carrie was able to monitor both baby and I without lines and tubes impeding my mobility. Nothing was done without conversation and information. There were not any unnecessary interventions.

Aspen was born into a room that was warmly lit with our mothers, Carrie and her assistant. She was given time to adapt to her new environment. She wasn’t rushed off to be placed under a warmer; she was placed on my chest with warm towels. I wasn’t rushed here or there, I was given time. I was walking within minutes of giving birth and taking a shower within hours. Carrie and her assistant left my house clean with laundry started; you would have never known that I had just given birth to my daughter in the floor of our front room. We got to spend our first hours and days with Aspen in our home, never having to load into a car or go anywhere.

Pregnancy is not an illness. It is a wonderful time in a women’s life where both her and her baby should be made to feel special and empowered. Carrie provided the care that I needed and wanted and I cannot wait for when the time comes when I will need her services again. She is a blessing to her profession and her love for what she does shines through her.

One early December morning in St. Petersburg, Russia, I walked into my husband’s sleepy arms and delivered the news I could barely process – I was pregnant! After only 5 months of marriage, we were parents. Overjoyed at the unexpected but welcome blessing, I immediately began researching the possibilities of home birth. We both wanted to give my body every chance to do what it was created to do without the temptation of pharmaceutical pain management or the pressures of premature medical intervention. I’ve had friends whose lives were saved by such interventions, but I’ve also had friends who suffered greatly from the use of interventions that were unnecessary and hindered the natural process of labor. We also wanted continuity of care – a caregiver that we knew well and would be with us throughout our journey. I did a lot of reading and research on midwifery and we were both satisfied that, as long as the pregnancy remained low-risk and there were no complications with mother or baby, a home birth was the best option for the arrival of our son. After emailing back and forth with several midwives in the Little Rock/Conway area, we interviewed with Carrie via Skype (as we were living in Russia at the time). She was friendly and warm (even though meeting on a computer screen can be rather awkward). We asked her a lot of hard questions and she had satisfactory answers for each, including the one I posed about her experience with shoulder dystocia (wedged shoulder). For some reason that had always been a concern of mine, and it’s quite a valid one especially outside of a hospital setting. Something else that was of utmost important for Jeffrey (my husband,) and me was that our midwife share our faith. We wanted whoever was in that room with us to be able to enter into the sacredness of birth and we wanted her source of Help to be the same as ours. Carrie’s love for the Lord was as apparent as her passion for her vocation, and our decision was made. Not much about my labor was “textbook”. I had read oodles of birth stories and was well prepared, but when my water broke I couldn’t even tell that’s what it was! I felt a pop and an immediate cramp, and then had to pee . . . but I wasn’t even sure if we should call Carrie yet. My husband is very action- oriented, and I’m grateful, because he got the ball rolling as soon as I allowed myself to admit that something might be happening. My contractions were just like mild period cramps at first. We timed them, but they were only 20-30 seconds, 2-3 minutes apart. Carrie told us that they needed to lengthen and space out in order to be effective, but it wasn’t long until I could barely stay on my feet during them. When it became clear that things were progressing more quickly than we thought, Carrie came right over to check me and the “it’s really happening – NOW,” hustle and bustle began. My parents and all of my siblings had traveled up for the birth and Jeffrey’s parents were there too (we were having the birth at their house since we live in an apartment). My brothers and dad came in and out of the room with big pots of boiling water to warm up the birth pool, my sister brought me cold water, my mom sat in the corner reading from my favorite fairy tale and Jeffrey hardy ever left my side. Carrie was present and supportive, reminding me to keep my voice low in order to stay relaxed. I needed her to tell me every once in a while that everything was normal and “okay” medically. From where I sat NOTHING felt normal or okay. My contractions never did space out and toward the end it felt like one long contraction with bursts of intensity, but never a release or a moment of real rest. I needed to know that our families was there in the house, loving me and loving Jeffrey and loving the baby. I needed to be able to rely completely on Carrie’s medical knowledge, trusting that she would know if something were going wrong. I needed to know that my husband was close enough to touch (more like grab,) and I needed to hold onto the belief that, no matter how hard things got, we were doing this because we believed it was the absolute best thing we could do for our son (even before I held him in my arms that was a powerful motivator). Carrie dealt with several unexpected developments during labor with efficiency and compassion, including a cervical lip that didn’t want to recede and a tilted (retroverted) uterus that made it difficult for the baby to be born. She had me get onto a birth stool and at one point had both of my feet braced against her shoulders. When Mikaiah finally got past the crowning stage, I noticed an immediately increased sense of urgency in the voices cheering me on. I needed to push NOW. I felt Carrie reach in and do something quite painful, and knew that his shoulder must be stuck. In that moment, it was essential for me to trust her implicitly and to do exactly what she said. It hurt worse than anything I’ve ever experienced but she said “push!” so dagnabbit, I pushed! She got Kai out and got him breathing and had him on my chest so fast that I didn’t even have time to worry. My beautiful boy was in my arms and if you had asked me at that moment if I would be willing to do the whole thing over again, I would have said yes. Without hesitation, yes.

To put to words my appreciation and express them as you deserve would take a letter as long as my twelve page birth plan. Five and six star rating for sure! I am blown away with how personal everything was, to long prenatal visits and frequent phone calls to sincere help and encouragement like a friend. Having you was so much more than you just being a midwife to catch my baby. You walked along side me as a personal trainer for the race preparing for me to get ready. Then once it came, you were my encouragement and biggest fan cheering me across the finish line. I had no idea how happy and wonderful of an experience I would have with you. You earned every dollar and more. It wasn’t just the late night dealing with the birth pool and all the phone calls you made to me and the health department, but by how you cared about me prepping me with classes and quality time visits. Thank you for how available you are to talk and help me through so much. It’s a sad chapter to close with the post partum visit coming, but by God’s grace more kiddos will come and the race will begin again! I just hope it will go smoother during labor next time. I think the world of you! Thank you!

Carrie assisted at my homebirth as a student midwife.  Even then her care and compassion, as well as passion for natural birth, was quite evident.  She later acted at my doula in a midwife attended hospital birth while she was on her break from training as a midwife.  Her commitment to helping me birth naturally was above and beyond.  She offered encouragement and support through the various stages of my very prolonged prodromal labor. She offered many suggestions for keeping the contractions active during the day as my exhaustion began to build and stayed by my side to encourage and assist me. She then continued to encourage me to seek my birth goals when I became stalled at 7 cm for hours.  Never letting me forget that birth is a natural process and my body was made to do this and it would happen.  Reminding me that the end was near when I was ready to give up and literally helping to support me physically as I gave birth while standing in the shower.  When my next baby died during the second trimester, she was once again by my side.  When it became necessary to seek an induced stillbirth because my body refused to recognize the miscarriage, she accompanied me to the hospital and remained by my side through the entire induction process.  Once again offering hip and leg massages since this is where I feel contractions the most intensely toward the end of labor.  She was allowed to catch my unborn child and cared for it as carefully as she would have a living child before handing him off to me.  After delivery, she remained with me for a period of time to offer comfort and care in my time of loss and recovery.  

I’ve always known that I wanted to deliver my babies naturally.  I believe a woman’s body was made for this very purpose and we have everything we need to get the job done.  I had never even heard of a midwife until a friend of mine was pregnant and said she was going to do a home birth.  “You can do that?!?!”  I was shocked and intrigued.  I’m not opposed to modern medicine and I know hospitals have a purpose, but I also wanted as little intervention as possible for the labor and birth of my first son.  I wanted the chance to let my body do this amazing, hard, normal thing it was created to do.

It didn’t take much research before someone pointed me to Carrie Cobb.  We had our first meeting where she answered our questions, settled any nervous jitters, and encouraged us to do some research on natural childbirth. I loved that she believed education and research was empowering and could help us make an informed decision.  It wasn’t a hard choice for my husband and me to say yes to Carrie.  She is the perfect blend between letting a woman labor naturally and knowing just when and how to step in.  Her medical knowledge and midwifery training pair perfectly together.  Carrie believes in natural childbirth, but she also believes in safety and doesn’t take silly risks, which is also extremely important for a mom and baby.  It wasn’t just her ability as a midwife (don’t get me wrong, she is amazing and knows her stuff) it was also her personality.  She was a perfect fit for our family.  Carrie is great at being as hands on or off as you need.  She is firm and not afraid to tell you what you need to do, but she isn’t overbearing or intense.  Carrie has been our family midwife from the beginning, and will soon be delivering our fourth baby.  We love getting to have our babies at home and have enjoyed all of our birth experiences with Carrie as our midwife. She has been such a huge blessing to our family.