Midwife Consultations

As certified professional midwives, the Hearth & Home Midwifery midwives know that natural birth can look different for each person in our care.

Consultations enable us to get to know each potential client (and often their partner or family) and determine if we’re a good fit for each other.

They lay the foundation for downstream decisions and can start shaping your overall pregnancy and birthing experience.

What to Expect During Your Consultation with a Hearth and Home Midwife

We’ll get acquainted.

Choosing a midwife is exciting, and you can rest assured that our midwives have your and your baby’s best interests in mind. 

We’ll get to know one another and generally just get a feel to see if we’re a good match! 

Throughout your consultation, you’ll be able to ask questions, discuss goals, share your birthing desires and fears, etc. These bits of info are gems that help your midwife craft a personalized home birth plan tailored to you.

Steps for Scheduling a Consultation

1. Request Your Consultation. The first step is to complete and submit the Consultation request form. This form gathers all the basics — your name, contact information, estimated due date, etc. — we will provide you with more details about our practice and get you scheduled for a consultation or your first prenatal appointment!

2. Schedule Your Consultation. Next, we’ll be in touch to set up a virtual consultation or an in-person prenatal visit with one of us midwives. 

3. Meet. The consultation will be for 30 minutes and - as detailed above - we’ll pack in a tone during that half hour.  This is your chance to learn more about us and tell us about you.  Our consultation will set the stage for your prenatal care.

4. Next Steps. You’ll likely be ready to jump right in! We love getting started with our clients as early in pregnancy as they’re ready to start receiving care. Prenatal care and certified midwife services can start as early as 6 weeks of pregnancy!

Questions to Ask the Midwife

Some questions midwives are commonly asked during consultations include:

• What are your qualifications? What certification do you have?

• What’s your role in the birthing process?

• How often will I see you throughout my pregnancy?

• Can I contact you between appointments? If so, how?

• What prenatal tests and screenings do you recommend? Why?

• Do you offer guidance on prenatal nutrition?

• Can I continue my current exercise routine while pregnant? Do you recommend any specific exercises to facilitate my pregnancy, labor, and/or delivery?

• Can I have a planned waterbirth at home with you?

• What pain management options do you support?

• Under what circumstances would you recommend interventions during labor?

• How much do your services cost?

• Do you provide postpartum care for mother and baby?

• Do you offer childbirth education?

• Is there anything else I should know about you, your practice, or your approach to midwifery care?

Birthing Options to Consider & Discuss

The personalized home birth plan that we’ll create together will be all-encompassing.  Together we’ll discuss:

• Birth environment. Who do you want to be at your birth? Consider the lighting, the music, what you want your space to look like, and how you want it to feel.

• Pain management options. Do you want to have a waterbirth, work with a doula, or make a specific plan around natural childbirth techniques?

• Birth plan preferences. What does your ideal birth look like?  How do you imagine your midwife taking the best care of you?  Who do you want to catch your baby?

• Postpartum care. Will you want breastfeeding support, newborn care guidance, or other postpartum support?

Holistic Care

We provide comprehensive, holistic care that’s specialized for our clients before, during, and after childbirth.

“I discovered Hearth & Home’s podcast about a year before I hoped to conceive and fell in love with Sarah and Charli’s rare blend of empathetic, grounded, and data-based guidance. I knew I wanted to work with them and was thrilled to become a client when I became pregnant. Over the 9+ months of their prenatal, labor, and postpartum care, I have become a fierce advocate for physiologic birth and feel privileged to have a homebirth in their care.

The prenatal appointments were highlights of my pregnancy. I felt thoroughly heard, informed, and understood. Their care was tender yet no-nonsense, often providing exactly the advice I didn't know I needed to hear.

Our daughter was born at home, in our bathroom, four steps from my bed. Charli’s presence, guidance, warm affirmations, and clear communication of risk factors gave me all the confidence and strength I needed. It would be impossible to overstate the impact that homebirth and in-home postpartum care had on my recovery and bonding with my baby. We stayed cozy in bed together, focusing only on each other.

Sarah, Charli, and Emily tended to us lovingly in those early days and reassured us when we had concerns. My husband and I trusted the midwives at Hearth & Home completely and felt privileged to become parents under their holistic, empathetic care. They are smart as hell, super funny, and the best team I could have imagined. If we ever have another baby, they’ll be the first to know. We wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.”

-Willa Johann 

“What an amazing group of midwives! My wife and I were truly blessed by the knowledge and commitment that Sarah, Charli and Emily have to their practice. They always provided care that exceeded expectations and were able to educate us about all our options. We are so grateful for the wisdom, compassion, and encouragement that these amazing women showed us during the pregnancy, labor and delivery and in our postpartum care. We loved working with their team for the birth of our son and intend to use them for the birth of our next child whenever that may be. If you are looking for a team of midwives to love and support you through the incredible journey of bringing new life into the world look no further!”

-Tylan Webster

“When my partner and I decided to seek out a home birth and transitioned our prenatal care, we were both blown away by the level of treatment we received. I didn’t start seeing these midwives until well into my second trimester, and thought we had decent providers at the hospital, until my first visit with Hearth and Home. Their dedication to the health and well-being of my baby and I was profound. It was such great care that I never wanted to leave my visits.

That dedication and love continued through our birth and into our postnatal care. I’m eternally grateful to have had these women be part of our birth and would recommend them to anyone, without hesitation. If we have another baby, I can only hope to work with them again.”

- Justin Larson

Are you ready to take the next step?  If so, set up a consultation or an initial prenatal visit with one of the Hearth and Home certified professional midwives.  Simply click the button to get started.