My look back as birth center marks 20 years of babies

Saturday Lisa Ross Birth and Women’s Center will celebrate its 20^th year anniversary of catching babies. It makes me think back to the 15^th year anniversary celebration, that I attended and immediately knew it was the place for me to birth my babies.

Five years ago I was pregnant with my second daughter and had lived in Knoxville for less than a year. I had a wonderful birth experience at a small hospital with a midwife in Atlanta, for my first. It was just the birth I wanted.

Nearly everything I envisioned went according to my drawn out birth plan (a colorful sketch of me in a claw foot bathtub) from my Birthing From Within birth class. My romantic idea of giving birth came true, within reason.

Jump forward to baby number two in a new town.

I had a hard time accepting that I would be birthing without my same midwife, who I bonded with while she sat scrunched under that bathroom sink for three hours and 17 minutes while I worked to push out my first baby girl. The midwife also lived in my neighborhood where I could stop and talk while she watered her garden, ask baby questions and eww about how fast my girl was growing.

I was thankful there was a freestanding birth center in my new town, but I wasn’t quite sold on it yet. Because I still missed my old midwife.

Getting very pregnant, I attended the Lisa Ross Birth and Women’s 15^th Anniversary Celebration. When I saw the midwives all together, their presentation of birthing women and the 200 some people that showed up for this reunion of sorts – I was sold. I knew I was in the right place and that this was going to be a good thing. I could stop longing for my old midwife. I was ready to embrace this new experience.

My feeling was right on. What I thought was a perfect natural birth the first time around, went beyond what I could have imagined with the birth of my second daughter.

The peace of being at a birth center, where I was never separated from my baby, who was never even taken off the bed with me where my husband and I slept after the birth – was amazingly different and wonderful from my first birth in a hospital. When I didn’t think my birth experience could have gotten any more empowering or beautiful, it did.

After my second daughter was born at Lisa Ross I was so moved by my birth experience that I started volunteering there, which led me to become a member on the Board of Directors. Three years later I had another baby there. And two years later I’m still on the board, here to tell everyone why I so wholeheartedly believe it’s such an amazingly special place for women and families.

But just don’t take my word for it. Come out on Saturday to The Lisa Ross Birth and Women’s Center 20^th Anniversary Celebration! It will be a celebration of 20 years of caring for moms and babies in our community, with new moms coming and old one reuniting.

It will take place November 19, 1:00pm – 4:00pm at New Harvest Park in East Knoxville, at 4775 New Harvest Lane.

There will be live acoustic music, children’s activities, Waldorf style puppet show by Rainbow Theatre,  a silent auction and a special program celebrating the center’s 20-year history.

To read the wonderful anniversary story in News Sentinel about LRBWC, written by Kristi Nelson, click here. To read more about why I think Midwife Support its the Best Push into Motherhood, read that post. This post and my story originally ran on Family Friendly Knoxville, helping to spread the word about this great event.

About the photo up top: It’s my second baby girl laying on the bed at LRBWC after her birth, being measured while she took a brief break from nursing and snuggles with mom.