I initially wasn’t going to leave a review, but I feel that would be unfair to anyone looking for more information to make a well-informed decision about working with Kristen. I acknowledge that my pregnancy experience with Kristen is in no way the same as what other people have or may experience and there are many variables to take into account, but I would be lying if I said ours was an amazing experience. Or that it was even good. The following are some of the reasons why I say this:


1. We were not informed about her required blood tests in advance and though we’d very recently had a majority of blood tests done, we were obliged to do them all over and pay for them all again. In all of my communications with Kristen beforehand, this was never mentioned. Even on her pamphlet, it just says lab work is an extra cost outside of her charge but nothing about required tests.
2. We were charged for a full 9 months of pregnancy care when we were only with her for around 2 months and then had two weeks of checkups for the boys (any more than that would have been an extra cost to us because of the twins). When we ended up in the hospital and I had a Cesarean, we were never offered any of what we paid her back, leaving us with double the expense of giving birth on top of an extra fee for a second midwife as well.
3. She scared me half to death over the well-being of my baby (before we knew we were having twins) by telling me stories about esophageal atresia in her other patients when I was measuring large like they were. No new mother should ever have to experience that level of stress and fear.
4. This being my first pregnancy and birthing experience, my husband and I were left very much alone to go through labor. She gave a word of advice here or there but was in another room entirely throughout the whole process apart from checking the babies heart rates or at around 25-30 hours when it was time to get serious about moving along my active labor. I even had to ask her to come initially after being in labor for several hours because she didn’t feel I was far enough along yet for her presence to be necessary. But what about for the peace of mind for a new mother?
5. And while I don’t blame her for the trauma my firstborn experienced via the suction method or going through the hell we went through in the hospital, I have since learned from my first midwife that there is a way for midwives to check and find out the position of a baby’s head in the birth canal without the use of machinery. This was not done by either of the two midwives and I can’t help but think that my firstborn’s head could have been fixed at home without medical intervention, avoiding the hospital trip and all that went along with it.

Perhaps what I’ve listed above isn’t an issue for some people. Fine. Great. I don’t wish Kristen any ill, this is just my experience and perception. For me and my husband, working with Kristen was a lot of extra expense and unnecessary stress which ended in the opposite of the beautiful experience I had hoped for with the birth of my boys —everything I had hoped to avoid by having a home birth. But lesson learned. I will never again work with a midwife without meeting her in person (which, granted, was a luxury we didn’t have having moved to VA from SD only a few month before my due date) and before making sure I have ALL the information up front first. And that’s why I’m sharing now. I highly recommend every pregnant mama do the same.