The  Madison Birth Center is a free standing birth center in Middleton that draws from the best of both the hospital world and the world of midwives and home births. It is a place where a girl like me who hates hospitals can feel at home. Where everyone knows your name by the time you are approaching your due date. Where Ivy loved to visit because  she could help find Clara’s heartbeat and when that got old, visit with the staff and play with baskets full of toys. Where the birthing suites have real beds with real bedding and both are nicer than what we have in our house. Where the showers are huge and the bathtubs even bigger. Where they help you deal with insurance companies, and where you are welcome to stop by for a visit at lunch just to say hi. Where they send you home soon after you have a baby but then have home visits so you don’t have to leave once you get there. Where the  same small staff you have appointments with is there at your birth. Where your birth assistant and her small son sleep down the hall, and the boy asks to meet the new baby before he goes to school. Where my two girls were born with no regrets.

And then there is Aszani, the lady who was the founder of the birth center. Who knew all the right things to say at the scary times of the pregnancy, and all the right things to say at the fun times. Who teased my husband unmercifully during check-ups, and who yelled at him when he left the exam room door open.  Who will send you to acupuncturist or an obstetrician for consulting depending on the circumstances, and who will use herbal inductions to get a labor started, but grab the pitocin first for excessive bleeding after. Who gives the best hugs.  Who caught both my girls.  And who is moving to Minneapolis next month.

Aszani is moving to be closer to her family and will be working at a birth center in the cites. The Madison Birth Center will stay open with new midwifery team. Sadly the other midwives we also grew to love and trust will be moving on as well, and I wish them all the best. I’m sure the new midwives will be wonderful,  but I will always miss the women who where there for me.   Things wouldn’t have been the same without  Anastasia and  Mary, but most of all Aszani.   She was the woman who caught my babies, but she was so much more than that. As I write this through my tears I know the woman in her new practice will realize what a gift they have in her, and I’m sure she will earn a special place in their hearts as she has in ours.