“Go to the people, live with them, learn from them, love them. Start with what they know, build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say “we have done this ourselves”.
~ Lao Tzu ~
You, as the birthing woman, knows what is best for you, your baby and your family.
We will support you during one of the most intimate experience of your life, our care reflects our vast knowledge and mirrors your personal beliefs and birth choices.
When birth is integrated into life as a family event, the family is strengthened as well.
Whether you’re seeking a more fulfilling birth experience or one with minimal interference, our goal is to help you achieve your desired birth experience.
We provide evidence based information to enable you to make informed decisions about your care and treatment
We not only address the physiologic aspect of childbirth; we also address your emotional needs in pregnancy and childbirth.
What Do You Want Most from A Birth Attendant?
Someone who is fully present, who can manage the energy in the room so that it matches yours, someone who holds your space with tranquil vibes, with an openness to witness birth a way she may not be familiar with, so you can relax and experience birth in its most natural and primal form, without belittling you or turning it into a medical intervention, or imploring fear. Somebody who holds your space energetically safe and trusting.
Someone who intuitively takes care of you, nurtures you and elevates your partner. Someone who looks at you and knows when you trust yourself and go inward. Someone who knows when you need gentle mindful guidance even when you are at your most stubborn. Someone who offers you some water, tends to your partner, answers the door so that you can move through the waves as you need to. Someone with a strong energy to counter your transitioning one … like no girl … we’re staying right here, you aren’t alone, you are ok, you can do this, you WILL do this so let’s do it! Someone who takes pictures and cleans when you want to rest with your baby.
Someone who shows strength, compassion, empathy, and courage. Someone who is honest and transparent, someone who knows your wishes and that you can trust is going to support you and advocate for your in difficult situations.
This is what we do for you!
Certified Nurse Midwife, Owner
Isabelle graduated with a Master Degree in Maternal Child Nursing and Midwifery from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Upon graduation, she joined a hospital-based practice where she not only gained a lot of experience but also developed an interest in holistic, family centered, evidence-based, shared decision-making midwifery care. In the Summer of 2017, to better serve the women in our community, Isabelle founded My Mindful Birth to support women who want to give birth to their child in the comfort of their home and on their own terms.
Healthy You, Healthy Life
We provide a complete range of well-woman and gynecological care including routine pelvic exams, annual check-ups, Pap, STI testing and birth control counseling. We offer a full range of options with hormonal and non-hormonal methods of family planning.
Support and Guidance
All prenatal appointments are held in our office with the exception of one home visit at 36 weeks. Each subsequent prenatal visit lasts approximately 30-45 minutes, ensuring plenty of time to answer all of your questions and concerns. Our care is thorough and personalized so that you have the healthiest and most well-rounded pregnancy experience possible. We focus on nutrition, stress management, make the appropriate clinical assessment, obtain lab specimens standard to pregnancy, give referrals as needed, address all of your questions and concerns and create a birth map reflecting your beliefs and preferences. We do accept later transfer when possible.
Consultation Referrals with physicians if indicated
Extensive network of professionals for all of your pregnancy needs
Birth is Sacred
When we arrive at your home, we enter your birthing environment calmly and quietly, joining you as you labor. Our philosophy is geared to promote a natural birth process and interfere with it as little as possible. As a member of your birth team, our role is to follow your lead and to facilitate your labor with guidance, reassurance and support while responding to each one of your individual needs.
We will assess your progress by observing you and asking you a few questions.
From there we will get you as comfortable as possible, make you feel reassured and safe knowing that your team is right there for you
Comfort and Relaxation
Labor tubs create a semi-concealed retreat for the laboring mom. For many, this is more comfortable than laboring out in the open in view of the birth team and aids in relaxation. Relaxation is crucial to an easier and less painful labor. Warm water helps to soothe tight and tired muscles, providing significant pain relief. The water buoyancy helps the laboring mother conserve her energy as she doesn’t have to support her full weight, this makes any position changes easier. The freedom and ease of movement in and of itself can decrease the sensation of pain. Between contractions, many women enjoy relaxing while allowing their bodies to float. Increased relaxation allows women to dilate more quickly resulting in a shorter labor on average and reduces medical interventions including c-sections, episiotomies, and the need for stitches. It can also help to lower blood pressure.
Falling in Love
There is nothing quite like holding your long-awaited newborn baby, studying their features, and falling in love with them as they are falling in love with you.
We consider the immediate postpartum period to be one of the most important time of the child’s life. We call it the “Golden Hour”. From the moment of birth, you and your baby shall not be separate. We can check you and your baby closely with you keep your baby in your arms. All routine procedures will wait until baby is done nursing.
Our team remains with you for about 3 hours following the delivery, making sure that you and baby are adjusting well and that the you have all the information on what’s normal and would prompt a phone call to the midwife.
before we leave, we make a plan to follow up by phone at least once or twice until we return the next day for a postpartum visit.
… and when all’s done and you are in bed snug as a bug in a rug, we’ll give you a big hug and let you rest.
We return to your home the next day for the first of our postpartum / newborn follow-up visit and again, on day 2 or 3.
A final postpartum visit is done by 4-8 weeks postpartum with a focus on well women health and family planning.
“When you change the way you view birth, the way you birth will change.”
-Marie F. Mongan, founder of HypnoBirthing
One of the most important decisions you have to make during your pregnancy is choosing the right provider, one who shares your philosophy about birth. To help you with this process, we offer a free 30-minute consultation to give you an opportunity to feel if we are a good fit for you. Partners are strongly encouraged to attend this consultation.
Phone, text, e-mail, support: our midwives are on call to answer emergencies. We appreciate if phone calls or text are limited to urgent matters and non-urgent matters are addressed via email or messages on the portal. Please note that the business phone number does not accept texts and we are not responding to Facebook messengers. Please, allow 24-48 hours to our response.
Because of the nature of homebirth, when you establish care with a homebirth midwife, you are buying your “spot” instead of “fee for service”. Our midwifery fee is an all inclusive fee and includes all routine prenatal visits between 10 and 40 weeks; attendance to labor and birth, immediate postpartum recovery at home; newborn care and assessment at home; 2 follow-up care visits at home for mom and baby; newborn metabolic test (PKU); newborn hearing test; and a 6-weeks postpartum visit in the office. Non-routine visits, labs, ultrasounds, consults, medications, supplements and other provider fees are additional to the midwifery fees. (Other fees may apply.) In order for the practice to attend a birth, the midwifery fee must be paid in full before 36 weeks.
In order for us to provide the unrushed, personalized care that we do, we have chosen to remain out of network with insurances. We can provide you with an itemized bill for you to submit to your insurance or you can ask us to submit your claims electronically.
Your insurance may cover some of the cost of your homebirth. Here are a few questions to help you understand your benefits:
Does your plan include maternity care? Does your plan covers midwives/advanced practice nurses? Does your plan covers homebirth? What is your deductible and co-pay? How much of your deductible have you met so far? When does the deductible reset? What is the maximum allowable amount?
Will your insurance give you an In Network PPO? When a PPO waiver is obtained, the claims are processed as if you were using a participating provider while the out of network provider still retains the right to bill the client what the insurance doesn’t cover.
Clients with an HMO plan, health share plan or who have a high deductible are cash pay
We attend births in the Western Suburbs of Chicago, we travel within a 70 miles radius of Naperville. We stay South of I-90, West of I-294 and North of I-80. We go as far as DeKalb/Sycamore.
We only take a handful of clients per month and tend to fill very quickly. Occasionally, we are able to accept a transfer later in pregnancy. If you are transferring care to My Mindful Birth, we will need a copy of your prenatal record. You can request a copy of your prenatal record from you previous provider and bring it to the office or fill out a Release of Information form (ROI) when you come to your first appointment.
Our practice utilizes Clientcare, an electronic health record (EHR) which is secured and HIPPA compliant. As a client of My Mindful Birth, you can remotely access your chart via the ClientCare App portal, review your lab results and ultrasound reports, access educational handouts, view your upcoming appointments, and exchange messages with us.
The initial appointment is a longer appointment which allows us to review your health and birth history, complete the necessary paperwork and financial arrangements; discuss expectations for care as well as any concerns or questions you may have. This visit is commonly scheduled around 10-11 weeks.
Prenatal visits in the first and second trimester are once a month. Once in the third trimester, prenatal visits are every 2 weeks from 28 to 36 weeks, and weekly thereafter.
Baby will be here soon! A home visit at 36 weeks gives us a chance to talk more about logistics and setting up your home for the upcoming birth. We bring the birthing tub and birth kit with us and will check that you have everything ready. We combine your prenatal appointment along with a review of your birth preferences. This is a great appointment to include whom you plan to have in attendance during labor and birth, like a family member, friend, doula or birth photographer.
To ensure that you have a healthy pregnancy, some baseline blood work are done. We are checking for anemia, diabetes, thyroid dysfunction, urinary infection and infectious diseases. As a convenience to our clients, we collect the specimens in the office during your appointment but send the specimens out to the lab company (Quest Diagnostics). Ultrasounds are referred out.
Water birth is very safe for both mother and baby. We encourage all who are interested to experience the benefits of water birth such as:
La Bassine birthing pools are available for rent for a small fee. When you rent the birthing pool from us, it comes with everything that you need such as a disposable liner, water hose, faucet connector, thermometer, fish net, electric air pump, and draining pump. You set up the pool, we’ll take care of cleaning it!
For more on waterbirth and tubs, visit Waterbirth International www.waterbirth.org/.
We are often asked this question and we are happy to demonstrate the high level of preparedness for an out-of-hospital birth. So, what do we bring at each delivery?Literally, we bring about the same emergency equipment that is available on a hospital maternity ward or birthing center and because we never know when we are called to a delivery, we carry our equipment with us at all time.
We mostly use herbal tinctures, essential oils and homeopathy but should these remedies not be sufficient, we also carry most medications commonly used on a maternity ward such as Oxygen, IV fluids, different medications including antibiotics and medications if mom is bleeding, equipment to draw blood if needed, sutures, instruments, and Lidocaine for repairs, urinary catheters, speculum, gloves, disinfectant, bulb syringes, cord clamps, amnio hooks, flashlight. We also bring an electric heating pad to warm up bath towels for mom and baby, a rebozo, , a peanut ball and TENS.
We’ll meet you right where you are, with the unhurried attention you deserve, guiding you through the process of a natural birth. Our continuous labor support and encouragement helps you find the strength that makes it less likely for a woman to request pain medication or need medical interventions. We provide continuous support to help the new family bond as a new unit and make sure that mom and baby are adjusting well.
The midwife or her assistant will return the next day for a postpartum visit. This first visit is typically done by 24-36 hours after delivery and a second visit is done by 36-84 hours. A final postpartum visit is done by 4-8 weeks postpartum with a focus on well women health and family planning.
Our midwife is on call 24/7 to serve your needs or address your concerns and attend births.
Even though we limit the number of clients we take, it could happen that two clients are in active labor at the same time. This is a very rare event and should this happen, we reach out to our sister practice, MidwivesCare, for one of their homebirth midwives to back us up.
The birth of a child is one of the most transformative events a woman can experience in her life. At My Mindful Birth, we believe in a culture of birth that respects women and understands the deeper aspects of birth. Our holistic approach facilitates a fulfilling birth experience. During your journey to childbirth, we will help you find your own magic in giving birth. We truly believe that you are made to do this.
Take a look around our website, learn about us, our services and about homebirth, see what people say about us. Then, call us and let start to write your birth story together. This is your time to shine!
SneakPeek Clinical Early Gender DNA
My Mindful Birth is a participating location for the SneakPeek Clinical Early Gender DNA test. You can find out the gender of your baby when you are as early as 8 weeks into your pregnancy. We can administer the blood draw and submit your sample back to SneakPeek labs for you, for just $159. This service is available to anyone. For more information about the SneakPeek, please visit the SneakPeek website at https://sneakpeektest.com. 
Call us today to schedule your appointment.
A Baby Blessing is a calming pregnancy ritual rich with meaning and beauty …a gathering created to empower and support the new mother for her journey of childbirth and Motherhood.
Opposite to the traditional baby showers, a Baby Blessing is a sacred way to focus on the new mother and her experience. In this pre-birth ceremony, friends and family gather together with the pregnant woman as she reaches the fullness of her pregnancy to celebrate the beautiful changes in both the expectant mother’s body and life. The sacred ceremony is filled with loving intentions, blessings, and honor.
Midwives do have a host of other clinical skills that they can use, depending on their scope of practice, training, and licensure. In general, home birth midwives can do the following:
