Abide Midwifery

She is down to earth, evidence based, and dedicated. I have never met somebody who loves what they do as much as Kendra loves midwifery. I'm tempted to say I've met somebody who loves people as much as Kendra loves people. Throughout the course of my pregnancy, Kendra helped me to navigate iron deficiency anemia and gestational hypertension. I had experienced that with my first pregnancy, and her knowledge in regards to supplementing and diet helped me to make it to the end of my pregnancy without any extremely high blood pressure readings. Unfortunately, I did end up with postpartum hypertension, but throughout that process Kendra has been a supportive voice of reason. When my ultrasound showed signs of trisomy (resolved), marginal cord insertion (it was marginal, but a non-issue for us), and velamentous cord insertion (it was velamentous, but again, a non-issue), Kendra was there to reassure my husband and I with evidence based statistics. As for labor, it felt like my contractions were very close together early on. With Kendra living an hour away from me, and my family's history of precipitous labor, we were in regular contact once I noticed signs of labor. I'm not a phone call person, and I hate the idea of calling or texting somebody multiple times with updates or for clarification- it makes me feel like a nuisance. Kendra never made me feel like an annoyance or a burden. She encouraged me to stay in contact with her, because of the distance between us. When I felt like my labor was really picking up, Kendra drove to my house in the middle of the night and called her assistant. I was unfortunately only three centimeters dilated, and my contractions were feeling more like constant, radiating back labor by that point. Ultimately, I remained stuck at three centimeters through the night, feeling slightly defeated and also like a burden, because nothing had progressed and people had been called to my house. Kendra was the last person to leave around 11 a.m. She returned at 7 p.m. and I was 9 centimeters dilated. This time her assistant arrived along with my doula. The three of them together were a DREAM TEAM- such warm energy. Absolutely no negativity from any of them, just support and a wealth of knowledge, through the 7 hours that I was STUCK at 9 centimeters. My water simply would not break. It was an incredibly full bag of waters and Kendra could not feel the baby's head on the other side of it. I did squats, lunges, all of the things, and remained at 9 centimeters without my water breaking. We weighed the risk of breaking my water at home and ultimately I transferred to the hospital to have my water broken. During the time I was transferring, her assistant cleaned up everything from the home birth. My kitchen was cleaner than I left it and she made my bed, which I did not expect, but it was so appreciated. Kendra followed me to the hospital where I delivered a healthy baby boy on December 12, approximately 28 minutes after having my water broken. Kendra strongly advocated for me during her time at the hospital with me, from delayed cord clamping to not staying the full 24 hours after birth. Even though my home birth didn't go quiet the way I pictured it, having Kendra at my bedside in the delivery room was a blessing in itself, because she was a consistent voice of reason in the chaos that is a hospital delivery room. I would 100% hire Kendra again for a home birth.
Jan 17th, 2024

Nov 14th, 2023