Yonder Midwifery

Fresh cut flowers, gifted from hopeful mamas-to-be, make clinic days at my desk that much happier!

Labzzzzz! GBS, CBCs, GTTs, oh my!

One of the things that surprises potential clients the most is that we do all of your bloodwork and lab tests in-office.

You don’t have to go to another provider or to a cold sterile lab to have them done. Instead, we talk through what each test is for, risks and benefits, give all your options for testing or not testing at all (Hello informed consent!), and take care of it during your regular prenatal appointment!

Today was my first day back in clinic after getting home from a week long vacation to Denver, CO. My partner and I ate, slept, laughed, and took in all the art and nature we could. It was glorious!

I started writing this caption with a list of reasons why I needed to make this time for myself. I need to justify it because there is a nagging guilt that I’m trying to quiet. To be a midwife is to give all of yourself to your clients, often at the expense of yourself, your family, and your friendships. This is what I and so many of my colleagues were taught as students…if you aren’t suffering then you aren’t doing enough. Midwifery comes first.

Let me be clear that I am deeply dedicated to this work and every single family that I get to care for. I loooove it and wouldn’t trade it for any other job in the world. But the truth is that if I am not well then I am doing my clients a disservice. I have been quietly dealing with health issues that have undoubtedly come from the accumulated stress over the last 4 years as a student and licensed midwife. That’s not ok.

One of my big hopes is that my generation of new midwives will break the cycle of allowing our work to break our bodies, marriages, relationships, and spirits. We have to find ways to be well.

For me, that started with a tearful conversation with some midwife friends who gently told me that if I don’t go on vacation soon that they will kill me. They covered call for births, sat in for me at clinic, answered calls and texts, encapsulated placentas, and allowed me to turn off my phone for the first time in years. Community in midwifery might just save us.

So a huuuuge thank you to , , .kay, and for holding down the fort while I was gone! And thank you to all of my clients for being so gracious and understanding. I’m back, refreshed, and so ready for the last half of these 2024 babies!

📸: because “birth follows you everywhere, babe” 😂

Clinic hours were pretty stinking cute today 😍

Postpartum care in the United States is an embarrassment. Our bodies and brains don’t just suddenly go back to normal once the baby is on the outside. In fact, in the days and weeks proceeding birth, parents experience the biggest shift in hormones that they will in their lifetime. Wild hormones along with postpartum bleeding, organs readjusting, chests lactating, babies learning to nurse and us how to feed them, sleepless nights, relationship dynamics changing, and the physical recovery from growing a baby and the marathon of birth….and we what? Hand parents a baby and wish them luck? Maybe make the birthing person one solitary 6-week postpartum appointment to tell them they are cleared for s*x and exercise?!!

No wonder postpartum mood disorders are rapidly on the rise and maternal and infant morbidity/mortality rates in the US rank 55th IN THE WORLD. We are failing miserably.

One reason why midwifery care proves over and over again to be the biggest way we can make a difference in these statistics is that I see you. In my practice, every parent and baby are checked in on a minimum of five times and have 24/7 access to my emergency call line in the first 6 weeks postpartum.

You are not just a number or the thing necessary to get a baby here and then forgotten about. You are a whole person in and of yourself, and you deserve to be held the whole way through.

Home visits are one of my favorite parts of midwifery care!

For your 36 week appointment, we get to come to YOU!We will hang out on your couch while we discuss specifics that you either want or do not want to happen at your birth, go over our emergency care plan in case we need to transfer, send you off to do your own GBS swab (if you choose to test), listen to baby, and make sure your vitals all look good. We’ll also decide where the birth pool will go and get the lay of the land for important things like snacks/coffee/laundry.

But my favorite part? Seeing you, in your space, reveling in how hard you’ve worked to get this far, and feeling giddy over what’s to come ✨

I spent some time this afternoon printing out snapshots of some of our 2024 babies to add to the office wall. It’s such a fun way to see all of the little lives we’ve welcomed and families we’ve helped grow 🌱

Tiny human, big big love 🤍

Will I ever get over tiny toes poking out during baby’s first weigh? Impossible ✨

All of our March babies decided to come last week for one big birthday party! Congratulations to all of the Yonder families, and now this midwife is going to take a nap!

Today is the last day to pre-order the most exclusive of exclusive professionally designed (by me) t-shirts! $25 each

Payments made via Venmo (-grigsby) and put your size and color in the description!

March babies, we are ready for you! Today was inventory day because as a home birth midwife I bring the birth center to your house! Would y’all be interested in a tour of my birth bags?

Just a few things I keep stocked in my trunk:
- oxygen and resuscitation equipment
- dopplers for listening to baby during labor
- stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, pulse oximeter, and thermometer
- medication to stop hemorrhage, lidocaine, vitamin k, antibiotics, and erythromycin eye ointment
- IV supples
- birth pool, pump, and sump pump
- snacks, scrubs, phone chargers
- backups for my back ups!

Babies don’t really care what your schedule looks like. But sometimes their timing is so perfect that I finish up at a birth from the night and roll into the office with 15 minutes before the first clinic appointment of the day. Bonus that this yummy light was waiting on me ✨

I knew what I was signing up for with this job. Regular work hours? Never heard of em.

Some days I get to take afternoon naps, meet friends for coffee, and babies decide to come perfectly timed after I get all of my clinic appointments wrapped up. Other days, I’m driving all over East TN checking on multiple people in labor, rescheduling appointments, doing zoom consults in the car, and rushing back to the office in between to meet with who I can. Thankful today for healthy deliveries that leave me with a few hours of sleep and enough time to shower and feel human again before taking care of a brand new client.

Something about this gorgeous chunky babe sitting up and playing in the same bathtub I walked in to find her mom laboring in almost exactly one whole year ago…it gets me in the feels 🤍 Happy 1st birthday Sullivan!!

P.S. This midwife loves all the updates and baby pics. Seeing them pop up in my texts makes my day every single time!

This week I had an initial appointment with a new client who transferred into care half-way through her second pregnancy. Afterwards, I got this text message.

It took me aback. I needed a minute to sit with it and soak it in. This is why I schedule hour long appointments, don’t overbook myself, make myself available to clients outside of appointment times, and am always gobbling up the latest research. THIS is what midwifery care is all about.

Exciting Nursing News: Yonder Midwifery is teaming up with Calani Lactation Services to make sure that every single client has access to lactation support! Included in your midwifery care, at no extra cost, is a 36 week appointment to prepare and an appointment at 1 week postpartum to assess any issues and make sure you and baby are on the right track!

Breast/chest feeding is a common goal for the majority of my clients. While nursing is “natural” (most bodies produce milk after giving birth), that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. In fact, almost all parents need some guidance at some point in their nursing journey! It could be initially with how to manage a tongue or lip tie, clogged ducts, mastitis, wondering if your baby is getting enough, how to prepare to go back to work, or what to do when you are ready to wean. Asking for help can be hard, and knowing who to trust for answers is even harder. That’s why I am so excited to have Kristen on board to give new parents one less thing to worry about or plan for!

Image: “Engorged” by

That new mom glow ✨

One thing I talk about in my consultations is that on top of keeping clients safe I hope to help them truly experience the birth of their child and the birth of their new selves. Jasmine blew me away with her ability to soak it all in while also working long and hard to meet her baby. She would occasionally pause and whisper, “I am so excited to meet you.” Right before what I guessed would be her last push, I asked if she wanted to feel her belly with her baby inside one last time. She closed her eyes, full of tears, and tenderly held the curves of her baby as she had for the last nine months. With the next push, her daughter was placed right where her hands had been moments before like the best present reveal of all time.

After years of hard hard work and training, I am officially a licensed Certified Professional Midwife! With that, I want to celebrate the opening of Yonder Midwifery! I am now accepting clients who are looking for holistic home birth midwifery care.

It took so many people to make this all possible. You cheered me on, you babysat my kids, you gave money so I could afford application and test fees, you understood when I needed to cancel plans, and most of all you believe in me. I could not have done it without you! Thank you thank you thank you!

Now go check out the website, share with everyone you know, and message me when you find the typos that are inevitably there 😂

www.yondermidwifery.com

Introducing Yonder Midwifery!

I am officially licensed in the state of Tennessee and am truly overjoyed to start providing the type of care for pregnant people that I’ve always dreamed of: home birth midwifery care that is evidence based, individualized, gender affirming, and trauma-informed.

Go check out the website (link in bio) and share the news far and wide!!

I’m steadily working on my office space so it’s ready to welcome clients as soon as my license to practice in TN comes through! As a total book worm, my lending library is one of my favorite parts.

Let me know what your favorite reproductive health related book is so I can stock these shelves with the good stuff!

Bright eyes✨

New parents often ask me if their baby is ok in the immediate postpartum because they aren’t crying. A good robust cry is important in the minutes after birth to expel fluid and “turn on” the respiratory system. But one thing I love about home birth is that often times, because the environment is usually dimly lit, warm, and quiet with baby staying right next to their parent’s heartbeat and food source, they stay alert and calm after those first cries. What a sweet way to enter the world!

Its rare that I get to put down the student midwife hat and throw on the old trusty doula one. But it’s EXTRA special when I find out my bestie is with her client just down the hall and we are able to run downstairs together for coffee and big hugs!

BREECH!

While most babies settle into a head down position for birth, sometimes babies choose a breech (bottom or feet first) position. In the United States, most of the time that means an automatic c-section delivery. Nearly 90% of the time, actually.

Now, do you know WHY breech babies are born via c-section? It is because there is a significantly increased risk to both the birthing person in the baby. What’s mind blowing, though, is that risk comes from providers not being trained in physiological breech birth and how/when to step in when necessary. It is not routinely taught in medical school and many institutions have protocols that take a vaginal breech birth option off the table entirely.

Yesterday, I showed up with 13 other Tennessee midwives and student midwives for the opportunity to attend with Dr. David Hayes, an internationally recognized breech birth expert.

I am SO excited to have this knowledge and these skills to bring back to my community in hopes of providing even more options for my future clients!

AVAILABILITY UPDATE:
I currently only have 3 more openings for birth doula services in 2022.

There is one spot for each month in September, October, and November. If you’d like me to support you, may I gently suggest you call as soon as that little blue line takes your breath away 😉

I have plenty of room to encapsulate all of the placentas (whether I’m your doula or not) and will be over at student midwifing!

Week 1 of term 2 complete. I have 9 more terms after this one, but just like I tell my clients…just take it one breath (or paper, or quiz, or birth) at a time. Because lawd knows if I think about everything I have to do to get there, I’m going to loose my ever loving mind 🤪

I’m already so thankful to everyone who is loving me through this. Friends and family who are on call for watching my girls while I attend births, the midwives that spend their time teaching and trusting me, folks buying me coffee, understanding when I can’t call/text/hang out, listening to me cry when I’m not sure I can do it all, and cheering me on when I need to celebrate the little things. It takes a village to raise a midwife, and y’all are the best of them ♥️