Midwife limbo

I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is flying by. I'm already at 14.5 weeks and have had two midwife appointments already! The trouble is... Donna, our midwife, broke the news to us during our first meeting with her that she and her husband are planning on moving to South Carolina. In October. Our baby is due in December. So this is pretty bad news for us.

There are a few things you need to know about midwives. There are a few different kinds of certification. Here's agood briefing I found online:

Certified Nurse-Midwives (CNM)
Registered Nurses who have completed an additional 1-3 years of training. CNM's are required to work with a physician, they can obtain hospital privileges, and can write prescriptions. In most places, Certified Nurse Midwives attend both birth center and hospital births, in some areas they also do home births.

Certified Midwives (CM) or Certified Professional Midwives (CPM)
direct entry midwives (trained directly into midwifery without becoming a nurse first) who are certified by their state organization or through the North American Registry of Midwives. They receive their training through various methods such as appre nticeship, certifying programs or schools. Licensed Direct Entry Midwives (LDEM or LM) are Certified Midwives who have a state. They are licensed by a state board. CMs and LDEMs attend births at home. Licensing laws vary state by state.

CNM's, CPMs, LDEMs and CM's are required to pass comprehensive written and oral exams, to attend a required number of births, to have continuing education and peer review, and to practice by specific guidelines and protocols.

Direct Entry Midwives or Lay Midwives
receive their education primarily through apprenticeship with another midwife's practice or through informal schooling. Training and experience will vary among individuals. Some direct entry midwives choose not to get certified or licensed due to ph ilosophical beliefs. They attend births at home.

In Kentucky, the only midwives that can legally practice homebirths are CNM's. Unfortunately, there are a very limited number of CNM's who practice out-of-hospital, and one of them is Donna! :-( Because of this precarious situation, Matt and I have found outselves suddenly in midwife limbo. We are completely committed to planning a homebirth, so at this point it's a question of finding the right (preferably legal) midwife to work with rather than readjusting our hopes for this birth. I'm planning to call one CNM and one CPM today to set up interviews. My next prenatal appointment should be in a week and a half, and ideally I'd love to start seeing our new midwife as soon as possible.

Truthfully, I am pretty disappointed about Donna moving. She seemed to be the perfect midwife (albeit the semi-new agey stuff that I'm learning is usually inevitably linked to natural birth practices--this is so unfortunate; I wish more Christians would step up and reclaim the beautiful gift of birth that God gave us!!!); she was a CNM, had 6 years of hospital experience, had attended hundreds of homebirths, AND had attended several of my friends' homebirths. Plus, we really liked her! What a loss.

So that's where we find ourselves right now. I'll keep ya'll updated!