“Birth is powerful, sacred, beautiful, life-changing. Melinda was the facilitator for me to discovering just how life-changing birth can be. She is a source of comfort and peace. She empowers women to take control of their bodies and minds and accomplish amazing things! I had the experience that I had been anticipating and planned, and I know that Melinda’s support and wisdom were an immense contribution to my achievement!”
My husband and I have 3 children, our last being a home birth with Melinda. I can not say enough good things about her! After multiple interviews with midwives, Melinda clearly stood out above the rest! She has a caring and motherly spirit that made us feel so comfortable and at home with her. During labor she was very attentive and calmed any fears I had as a first time homebirth mom. Melinda was also great at my prenatal and postpartum visits - answering any questions I had, letting my older children help, laughing and letting me cry out my fears. If we decide to have any other children I will definitely be giving Melinda a call!
-Heather Bradds
“I have had one baby with Melinda and am about to have a second with her. I love having her with me through the whole experience: prenatal, birth, and postnatal. Every prenatal visit is a relaxed experience where my other children feel welcomed and included. She is very attentive and observant; I always feel like I am in capable and caring hands. During the birth itself, she was present and available when I needed her, but in no way interfered with what my body was naturally leading me to do. I had a peaceful and beautiful birth with her in the room. She was very thorough afterwards; she was so careful and conscientious in examining baby Wulffgang and me. I truly felt that we were well cared for. She also came for post natal visits and I again felt she was very observant and careful to be sure everything was going as it should go. I would recommend her to anyone hoping to have a home birth. I am so so grateful that she was recommended to me.”
Having a midwife for a mother is a unique privilege I wish more women could experience. It means you grow up thinking about birth in radically different ways than anything you see or hear. Even if you never attend a birth, the thought of birth, the act of labor, and the miraculous nature of women's bodies are ideas as common to you as house cats. It's dinner table discussion. Birth isn't weird or dangerous, it happens all the time quite peacefully in bedrooms and bathrooms and kitchens. No one is scared, no one is panicked, because no one is sick or dying. They are quite the opposite actually. Birth is the hard work of bringing forth life. It's active. It's focused. It's energy.
And when it was my turn to partake in the everyday common wonder that is birth, I knew every pain was purposeful, every fear irrational, and every instinct wholly designed. I was made for this moment. And my midwife of a mother? She was doing what she has been doing since the day I came laboriously into this world on the living room sofa: she was my gate-keeper. She held the space so that normal, healthy, heavenly designed birth could flourish safely. She made the way for me to make my way into the deep space that mother and baby meet in order to work together and birth a new world into the planet.
Midwife means "with woman." Mine happens to be my mother. I couldn't think of a more normal way to give birth than with the woman who birthed me. We did it 29 years ago for the first time, and I am sure we will do it again. And the reality is that she has been "midwife-ing" me my whole life. What a gift.
- Savannah McCoy Kilpatrick (Melinda's daughter)