| rev:text
| - I want to write a really balanced and fair review of Blossom while also sharing my personal experience.
Personally all the ladies, Nichelle, Mary & Amy are lovely people and I believe they mean well and do their best to create the Blossom experience in the way they see best.
I found my experience with them confusing, disorganized, impatient and even cruel. Depending on what you are looking for, I would make sure you vet them carefully.
Pros:
- track record of successful births onsite
- Nichelle is an OB which allows for continuity of care if hospitalization is required
- focus on maternal wellness/nutrition/education
Cons:
- administratively disorganized - scheduling, insurance questions, calls
- poor inter-team communication. It's clear that they are so overwhelmed that there is a lot of miscommunication that happens between the team.
- not a lot of patience for people who might be scared or need more information. They are such old hats they are far removed from the experience of a first time mom that my experience is that they can't empathize or be compassionate for being in that position
- they dropped me at 20 weeks and if they can do that to me they can do that to you. Ask yourself if you would even risk that.
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Blossom has chosen to have the office staff be people who are involved in the birth process, so birth assistants answer the phone and do the scheduling. They are lovely and office management is probably not their calling.
I had a very intense confrontation with them about a canceled appointment after my previous appointment had been scheduled incorrectly. Yes things happen and my reaction was disproportionate to what happened but it came down to the fact that I just didn't feel well handled or safe. I felt unimportant and discarded. To me, how you do one thing is how you do everything and it deeply concerned me about how they would handle a birth. We almost parted ways at that time but we smoothed it out, talked and I thought everything was great. They assured me that the details that truly matter re the health and safety of me and my baby were the ones they focused on and I promised to be trusting.
Fast forward a few weeks. I experienced spotting at 19 weeks and was very scared. I called and checked in and followed their instructions. I called again the next day and spoke to Mary and I did exactly as she told me. That night I remembered something that I thought could be important and I paged her. I was scared, emotional and had questions. She told me it did not sound like an emergency but go to the hospital if I wanted and call Nichelle the next day to ask her my questions since she was just going home after a birth. She said to me "sometimes when we are happy we create problems" and I insisted that I was fine until I experienced the spotting and I felt like she was projecting that onto me in an inaccurate way. I called the next day and got a message back to go to the hospital if I thought it was necessary. I didn't go to the hospital and decided to wait to my next appointment.
I showed up for my appointment and Amy brings in a piece of paper saying they had mailed me a letter of cancellation of services and they would no longer be my care provider. You can imagine at 20 weeks pregnant being told you have to go find another doctor or midwife being traumatic. They didn't even have the decency to call me. While a letter is the legal requirement, the way they handled it was cruel and insensitive, especially in light of our recommitment to one another only weeks earlier.
I see it as a blessing and a sign it wasn't meant to be. The behaviors put together do not signal the kind of care I want. While these women are very experienced, have an excellent percentage rate of successful and healthy births, they don't seem to have a lot of patience for people who don't have as much knowledge or experience as they do or a personality that is less than convenient for them.Even when I wanted to talk through the "what ifs" around needing to go to the hospital, I was told we don't talk about that because if you focus on it it was more likely to happen.
I am an intense and vocal person who speaks up and says something and asks questions because I am my own advocate. I think their ideal client is someone who is laid back and passive who doesn't cause them too much trouble. That is of course their right, but that does not give me a lot of confidence in being able to recommend them even though all the data points to them being very capable.
I strongly recommend you work with another midwife/birth center. Please feel free to Rach out to me if you want to discuss my experience in greater depth.
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