- Phone: 617-817-5397
- Email: birthandbeyondjp@gmail.com
Catherine McKeown-Lindsey
I live in Jamaica Plain with my husband and teenagers (two are off to college this year!) Shortly after my second was born in 2007 I informally began supporting a friend through her second pregnancy. She had a cesarean section with her first and was planning a VBAC (vaginal birth after a cesarean). I began researching with her and learned about midwifery care and natural childbirth. I supported my friend over the phone in early labor with encouragement and snacking suggestions. Her early labor was two days. When her labor shifted to active I again encouraged her and reassured her how normal everything was going and that she would know when the right time to go to the hospital was. After her water broke, on day three, she headed to the hospital and birthed her baby vaginally two hours later. I did not attend her birth because we hadn’t planned on that ahead of time. I was inspired by this experience and her amazing pregnancy and birth journey which set me on my path to become a doula and then a midwife. I attended a doula training two months later and started attending births right away.
In the spring of 2009 I enrolled in the Massachusetts Midwives Alliance (MMA) Basic Midwifery Course and began their one year program in August of 2009. I also found out I was pregnant with my third child in August 2009. It was a very busy year for me. I was planning a very different birth experience for my third, a homebirth with midwives. My third child had other plans for his birth however, and after 30 hours of labor at home we transferred to the hospital. It was not an emergency by any means, but midwives are experts of normal birth and when a labor deviates from normal (in my case exhaustion, asynclitic baby, dehydration, ineffective contractions, and a few other minor but added together important occurrences) my midwives and I made the decision to go to the hospital. Five hours after we arrived I met my baby and eight hours after that I went back home. While it was far from what I planned it was an amazing experience. I recieved the hospital interventions I wanted, but declined and refused what I didn’t want. I finished the MMA Midwifery Program two months after he was born and then spent the summer home with my children before resuming doula work and searching for a midwifery practice to continue my midwifery education. In January 2011 I began my midwifery apprenticeship with a local midwifery practice and in 2015 I graduated from Birthwise Midwifery School in Maine. I am currently accepting homebirth clients.
My passion for supporting families inspired me to build the Birth and Beyond collaborative. I hope our diverse group of birth professionals can reach more women and families than I could reach alone.
