*Content warning: medical trauma and neglect, threat of life, mature and stressful themes, pregnancy and infant loss. *Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips: somethingwaswrong.com/resources Moms Advocating For MomsS23 survivors Markeda, Kristen and Amanda have created a nonprofit, Moms Advocating for Moms, in hopes to create a future where maternal well-being is prioritized, disparities are addressed, and every mother has the resources and support she needs to thrive: https://www.momsadvocatingformoms.org/take-actionhttps://linktr.ee/momsadvocatingformoms Please sign the survivors petitions below to improve midwifery education and regulation in Texashttps://www.change.org/p/improve-midwifery-education-and-regulation-in-texas?recruiter=1336781649&recruited_by_id=74bf3b50-fd98-11ee-9e3f-a55a14340b5a&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=share_for_starters_page&utm_medium=copylink Malik's Law https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=HB4553 M.A.M.A. has helped file a Texas bill called Malik's Law, which is intended to implement requirements for midwives in Texas to report birth outcomes in hopes of improving transparency and data collection in the midwifery field in partnership with Senator Claudia Ordaz. *Sources:American College of Nurse Midwiveshttps://midwife.org/ American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)https://www.acog.org/ ACOG, Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring During Laborhttps://www.acog.org/womens-health/faqs/fetal-heart-rate-monitoring-during-labor Amniotomyhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470167/#:~:text=Amniotomy%2C%20also%20known%20as%20artificial,commonly%20performed%20during%20labor%20management. March of Dimeshttps://www.marchofdimes.org/peristats/about-us National Midwifery Institutehttps://www.nationalmidwiferyinstitute.com/midwifery North American Registry of Midwives (NARM)https://narm.org/ The Second Trimesterhttps://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-second-trimester#:~:text=The%20second%20trimester%20is%20the,grow%20in%20length%20and%20weight. Stages of labor and birthhttps://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/labor-and-delivery/in-depth/stages-of-labor/art-20046545 State investigating Dallas birth center and midwives, following multiple complaints from patientshttps://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/investigates/state-investigating-dallas-birth-center-midwives-following-multiple-complaints-from-patients/287-ea77eb18-c637-44d4-aaa2-fe8fd7a2fcef Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR)https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/ What to Know About Cervical Dilationhttps://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/cervix-dilation-chart Zucker School of Medicine, Amos Grunebaum, MDhttps://faculty.medicine.hofstra.edu/13732-amos-grunebaum/publications *SWW S23 Theme Song & Artwork: Thank you so much to Emily Wolfe for covering Glad Rag’s original song, U Think U for us this season!Hear more from Emily Wolfe:On SpotifyOn Apple Musichttps://www.emilywolfemusic.com/instagram.com/emilywolfemusicGlad Rags: https://www.gladragsmusic.com/ The S23 cover art is by the Amazing Sara StewartFollow Something Was Wrong:Website: somethingwaswrong.com IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcastTikTok: tiktok.com/@somethingwaswrongpodcast Follow Tiffany Reese:Website: tiffanyreese.me IG: instagram.com/lookiebooThe Webby Awards (2025)Exciting news! Something Was Wrong is nominated for Best Crime & Justice Podcast at the 2025 Webby Awards. We’d love and appreciate your support—cast your vote today!https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2025/podcasts/shows/crime-justice*Please note: the first airing of this episode stated that Rachel was a CNM, she is a CPM and LM so we corrected this error within an hour of release.
Chapter 1: What is the content warning and theme of this episode?
Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences. This season contains discussions of medical negligence, birth trauma, and infant loss, which may be upsetting for some listeners. For a full content warning, sources, and resources, please visit the episode notes.
Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself, Broken Cycle Media, and Wondery. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. Origins Birth and Wellness owners and midwives Caitlin Wages and Gina Thompson have not responded to our requests for comment.
Bye.
Chapter 2: Who is Brianna and what was her pregnancy background?
Hi, I'm Brianna. I was married in 21. I got pregnant about three months after we were married. We were excited to start our family, anticipating that this baby would come kind of around the one-year anniversary mark. I gave birth to my baby at Origins in 2022. during that time was also obviously fallout from COVID and the pandemic. I am a dietician by trade.
I had been working in the hospital in the NICU and the children's hospital nearby. So I was seeing the dynamics of COVID and hospital dynamics and all of the perfect storm that was happening at the time. I would describe myself as a little more holistic in my approach. I think Western medicine is an amazing miracle. It saves people's lives, but I also value the holistic side of health.
I would say I'm scrunchy. I'm somewhat crunchy. I was hoping for less of maybe a clinical setting to bring my baby into for that first pregnancy. We had tried going with an OB initially. I didn't necessarily know anything different. I had been going there for my well-woman visits, not specifically with the OB group, but with the family practice that was there under that same roof.
When I met with that OB in the first 20 weeks of my pregnancy, those various visits, I felt that she was just so in and out the door. My first pregnancy, you know, I'm scared of what's going on. I'm scared of what's to come. I'm also really excited and want to share that emotion. She came in, she was totally cold. And I just remember being like, I have so many questions and she's out the door.
I felt bad because I felt like she was in such a rush and had to get to the next person. Ultimately, the thing that kind of tipped us over the edge was I told her there were two tests that I was willing to let her run. And then when we finally got the results, there had been like a bajillion tests run genetically that I did not care to have.
And also when we got the bill, it was like hundreds and hundreds of dollars. And we had not anticipated that. I was really furious. And that's what ultimately pushed me to finding a birth center. I personally was not comfortable going the home birth route. I totally respect people who do that. I admire their strength and their courage.
I thought the birth center would be a happy medium between the hospital setting and the home birth setting. I wanted the expertise and care of midwives. I thought they brought in a medical perspective.
I think I felt more comfort knowing that and hoping that if I went to a birth center, I'd be able to build the relationship with my midwives and they would know me on the day that labor came and they would know my preferences and know my husband and all those dynamics.
I toured several birth centers in part because obviously I wanted to see the setting itself, but I also wanted to meet the people that would be traveling with me through pregnancy and birth. I did the tour at Origins Dallas. I wanted to know how close we were to the nearest hospital and how fast it would be to get there if things went awry.
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Chapter 3: Why did Brianna choose a birth center over a hospital or home birth?
That gave me confidence because I didn't want them to be too low because for whatever reason in my mind, that told me that they were too risky, that they didn't want to transfer, that they kept you too long. But then on the other end, I didn't want them to be like, let's just send her to the hospital right away.
I wanted to know that they were not afraid to send me, but also would try their best to do all that they could do to help me have my baby there. They basically told me that they were not afraid to call in help if needed, and that's what I wanted to hear. They had good reviews. I went to the Yelp reviews. I went to the Google reviews.
Even my husband's chiropractor, through work, his wife was very much involved in the birth world. I asked her for recommendations of birth centers, and Origins was one of them. So it was personal and public reviews, I would say, that I got. I selected Origins because everybody knew about them, and I just figured that a place that was so well-known couldn't be bad.
I felt that the fact that they had a good name, from what I was hearing, spoke to how upright they were. They had a CNM on staff at the time. I thought that that meant that they were more medically minded. I knew that they had several CPMs, but they also had a CNM. I knew that there was a difference between a CPM and a CNM. My sister-in-law is a CNM. She has a master's degree.
I knew that a CNM required her to have her nursing degree. I guess I didn't know necessarily the implications of what a CPM meant. I knew that they had a certain amount of hours under their belt. And because Origins had been around so long and they had good reviews, I felt like they could have been picky and choosy about which CPMs they hired. It wasn't just like the newbies fresh out of training.
I figured that they would have been more established. The fact that Origins took my insurance, I thought that that meant that they were on the up and up. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to have insurance cover you. Origins was the only one that took insurance, if I remember correctly. A lot of the other ones, had they blown me away,
I think I would have considered paying the extra money to go there. But all things considered, I was actually quite impressed with Origins. I really thought that I had vetted Origins. I actually didn't transfer into Origins until 20 weeks. So I was halfway through my pregnancy. Because I worked in Fort Worth, I preferred actually the Fort Worth location.
But at the time that my baby was due, the Fort Worth location was too full. They told me that there were openings in Dallas for my delivery month. So I went there. It was a bit of a drive. My parents were 12 hours away from where we lived, as were my husband's parents. Both of those sets of parents are in Colorado. So my mom had planned to be there after he was born.
She took the approach that I think you guys are going to be fine. You're in good hands. You guys should have your time as a family, like your own little family for a few days. And then I'm happy to come and help out. But of course, she was like, if anything bad happens, call me. I'll be there. She was supportive of my decision, but she was probably a little nervous.
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Chapter 4: What was Brianna’s experience with Origins Birth and Wellness during pregnancy?
We were pretty close like co-workers. She had been there for several years and she was a grandma, the sweetest lady ever. But she was so nervous about me going there and she really tried to dissuade me. She was the one that really vehemently was like, do not do this. I've seen such bad things happen. Babies that end up in this NICU.
But another one of my co-workers, also a dietician, she was super supportive and she had done all of her three births out of her center. So you go to your first appointment at Origins and I believe you saw Rachel? Yes. My husband did come the first visit with Origins. So we did meet with Rachel that very first visit. I only met with her once. I remember her being very warm and inviting.
And I think I made the comment to my husband after the fact that I was like, this is good. She took time to speak to my husband and ask him what he does and learn who he is. It was a very different experience from our OB visits. And I remember thinking that that was a breath of fresh air. It was like, okay, we're in the right place. Nothing invasive as far as testing or anything.
She, you know, heard the baby's heartbeat on her monitor. Yeah, that's what I remember the first visit. But Rachel left after that. The next person they hired on was a C&M. Ashlyn was a CNM. And so when she was hired on, I felt good again. Maybe the last couple months of my pregnancy, Ashlyn was on board. So I did see Ashlyn a couple times.
I always looked forward to my visits with Ashlyn because I was like, okay, this is the type of midwife I want. I do remember seeing Elizabeth a lot and I was kind of bummed by that. She seemed nice enough. I didn't feel the same warmth, I guess, from her as maybe I did with the others. I just didn't click with her. It seemed like she had been there quite a while from what I had gathered.
Her experience level made me feel a little more comfortable with her. I do remember thinking in the back of my mind at the time of my birth, I hope that she's not the one on call. I was really hoping for Ashley to I saw Elizabeth the most. Ashlyn probably was a close second. I think I saw Jen just once or twice.
My perception of Jennifer when I was there, I thought she had been a midwife for years. She acted like she knew everything. She totally acted like she ran the show. And I felt super confident in her because she acted like that. I was blessed to have a good first pregnancy. I did not have crazy morning sickness. The second trimester is always seemingly the easiest.
I was very fatigued my first trimester and that shook me because no one ever talked about that. I had low iron at one point. Instead of just giving you like an iron supplement, at least for me, they had a regimen, which is why people go there. They have a more holistic regimen. I was on chlorophyll and sesame seed oil and...
various other random supplements that a traditional OB would never probably put you on. Per my lab results, it actually did help. I could see with my own eyes the numbers. It made me believe that they knew what they were doing. It affirmed my trust and that you could have the same effect health-wise doing it that way versus doing like a more pharmaceutical approach.
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Chapter 5: How did Brianna’s labor and delivery process begin at the birth center?
There's some time points when they monitored it that they measured 60 seconds before, during, and after contractions. But then there's other time points where they write like 60 seconds before contractions. And there's no during and after. There's other times where it's 60 seconds during and after. So no before.
My understanding is that you have to do it before, during and after so that you can get like a good picture of what's happening. While the contraction is happening, you want to know what the baby's doing before. And then like while everything's being scrunched, is he losing his heart rate? And then like after, is he recovering? They obviously weren't monitoring his heart rate as they should have.
There was never any consistency. It was never with every contraction. So who knows what was happening to him in the meantime. I remember hanging over the tub. My husband was there rubbing my arm and trying to, you know, give me affirmations. And I just remember being in so much pain and terrified every time a contraction was starting. I remember the towel was getting so wet.
And as the towel gets wet, you know, it gets cold. And I was like, I just want to be warm and I want to be comfortable. I'm wet and I'm in pain and like nobody's helping and I don't know what to do. It doesn't seem like anything's happening and no one's directing me. They write that I was on my hands and my knees in the water at 2126. So that would have been about 930.
I remember it being three hours that we were at the birth center that I suddenly had this weird feeling that I hadn't felt before, which was kind of like this rhythmic downward motion that my body seems to do out of nowhere. And I was like, oh, maybe my body's telling me I need to start pushing. Maybe that was a push. Does my body naturally start pushing when it's ready? I told my husband that.
He had his little alarm bell clicker. She was like, whenever she starts pushing, click this thing and I'll come in. So he clicked it. He said, hey, she wants to push. What do we do? Ashlyn said, follow your body. Your body knows what to do. 21-27 is when the student wrote start of pushing. And then 21-27, Ashlyn put another comment in there. Discussed benefits of cervical exam.
Patient declines at this time. Father of baby alerted midwife via call button. Was bearing down with contractions. Midwife Ashlyn present and acting as primary provider. While midwife Elizabeth managed the second stage of patient CP next door. After the fact, they added this in that patient grunting with contractions told to listen to her body. No coached pushing at this time.
And this was added later after the fact? Yes. And do you know how much later? So the original unedited notes we downloaded on the 16th, a few days after my baby was born. The screenshots I took, it was about a month later. Their notes say that I had the urge to push at 9.30 around that time, but their edited notes, the added parts say they encouraged me not to.
It says that I claimed that I no longer felt the urge to push and Ashlyn encouraged me to rest and not push unless I had the urge to. They should have been explicitly telling me not to push because I was definitely pushing with literally every contraction. They told me to call on my body, so I did. That note about having offered a cervical exam, she did offer a cervical exam.
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Chapter 6: What concerns did Brianna have about fetal heart rate monitoring and care during labor?
Patient agrees and expresses a desire to go to Bumsey. And I do recall when she told me my cervix was swollen and that it probably would be a good idea to go to the hospital. I remember looking at her and being like, yeah, we're going. I'm going. No discussion. I told her I couldn't stop pushing. She just said to breathe through it as best as possible. You need to stop pushing.
What did you feel when they told you that? terror. I mean, it was like, what do I do? What am I doing to my baby? She never offered me an ambulance. I thought, putting my trust in them, that if it was bad enough where they thought I needed an ambulance service, they would 100% jump to the ambulance service without question.
The fact that she was saying, okay, the student midwife's going to lead you to the hospital, you're going to get in your car and drive, I thought must not be a dire situation. It's going to hurt like hell walking to the car, but she must not be that concerned. So at that point, I was very much confident I wanted to transfer.
Elizabeth said, okay, well, I have to write up your notes and send them over to Bumpsy and let them know you're coming. So I'm going to step out, get all that stuff together. You guys pack up your bags, get out to the car. The student midwife, follow her. But wait in your car until I'm done with the notes because I got to make sure they're over there. Elizabeth left the room.
The student midwife sat me up on the bed. I'm on like pads and stuff sitting on the bed. So we have to get my underwear on totally unprepared because we didn't anticipate having to get dressed with my innards falling out. They got me like an adult diaper quick and threw that on and threw my shorts on. We have tons of bags of stuff.
So my husband, you know, packed up all the bags, threw them in the car, came up and got me. And the student midwife's there. I mean, I couldn't walk. So I crawled hands and knees out the bedroom to the foot of the stairs. I tried my best to walk, but it just was not happening. The student midwife's kind of there just, I feel like she just didn't know what to do.
I never considered that I could end up on the second floor and need to get down to the first floor and that they didn't have an elevator in that place. But in this scenario where things don't work out and you end up on the second floor, suddenly an elevator becomes really necessary. People have brought that up to me and they're like, how is that even acceptable for like ADA purposes?
I got to the top of the stairs and I was like, well, I can't crawl hands and knees down the stairs. So what do I do? I tried standing and walking down the stairs. It wasn't happening. So I scooted on my butt one step at a time down the steps. So my open area is on this nasty ground separated only by an adult diaper.
Once we got to the bottom of the steps, I realized that I didn't know where my phone was. That was kind of important. My husband ran upstairs to try to find it. The student midwife went with him. So I just sat at the bottom of the stairs by myself for a few moments. They found it, came back to me. And then somehow, by God's grace, I was able to walk to the car, which is out on the curb.
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Chapter 7: What complications and communication issues occurred during Brianna’s labor?
What time do you think you get your epidural after you get checked in and everything?
I do know it was about a half an hour after we were there. It was around 3.30. I remember how terrifying it was having it placed, not only because it's a huge needle, but also because I was still having contractions and pushing through those contractions. When you have an epidural place, you have to be super still.
And I was so worried that because my contractions were so close together, it was like, okay, one ended, let's do it, go, before it happens again, because I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to hold still before the next one hit. So that was also a pretty terrifying predicament, but everything was fine. We got it in place.
As soon as that thing started kicking in and really doing its work, I was a different person. The nurse that took me in when I first showed up, she kind of laughed because I was terrified before that epidural was placed. And then after it was placed, I was on a high. I was laughing. I was joking. I was just like raring to go. The adrenaline, I felt amazing. I wasn't pushing anymore.
Are you able to get a little bit of rest with your husband before you end up pushing? How does your progress go from here?
I was. I was able to get some rest, probably a little bit of sleep. By 7.30 that morning, I was 10 centimeters and the medical team all came in. This is the other thing that makes me irate looking back, but we didn't know at the time. My husband and I did not realize, A, the danger that we were in and B, how awful the midwifery care was that we were receiving.
Elizabeth told us that we needed to notify her when I was fully dilated and ready to push. I have theories as to why she had to be there, and I don't think it was just all because she was an altruistic, loving person. We actually still trusted her at that point. So at 7.30, my husband called her saying that I was 10 centimeters and we were ready to start pushing. So Elizabeth actually showed up.
She arrived at 8.30. She asked if we wanted her to take pictures because I didn't have like a birth photographer or anything, but she was willing to take pictures and document. So we let her do that. I pushed from 7.30 to 10 a.m. So two and a half hours of pushing at the hospital after pushing at the birth center. My baby was born at 10 o'clock that morning.
With the history of what was going on, what they knew had happened, they called in some NICU personnel. They did care for him after he was born. He was especially black and blue and purple and not breathing and didn't breathe for several minutes. I was terrified. I knew, having worked in the NICU, that babies should cry pretty soon after birth.
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Chapter 8: How did the midwives manage pushing and cervical exams during Brianna’s labor?
I don't know what they did in terms of bagging and resuscitating and all that stuff, but definitely a little bit more so than what would be considered normal. His Apgars, the first one was a five. Not great from my understanding. He was brought to the radiant warmer, suctioned and stimulated. No respiratory effort. PPV started.
Infant began to have improved color and spontaneous respirations and crying prior to five minutes of life. ppvc pap removed so he did improve obviously within the time of major concern are you just completely exhausted at this point oh yeah absolutely also this massive amount of fear that this moment would never come escaped
But then also it's like starting up this new massive amount of fear of like, what just happened? What's ahead of us? Because he wasn't crying. Why was my cervix swollen? What's the implications of that? Why were there so many people called into this room? Why was the NICU team here? After the flurry of all that, we've stabilized him. The craziness had died down.
Elizabeth was chatting with us and we were being cordial. I remember she was like, well, I'm going to go grab myself a coffee and then I'll be back. But I'm going to go grab a coffee. I need some caffeine. Immediately after my 48-hour shift here, I'm going on my 10-day vacation. She let us know that she doesn't usually do 48-hour shifts, but she needed to get her time in before going on vacation.
So that was definitely not something we wanted to hear because is that why you're checked out? What if she had delivered babies all day for the past 24 hours? I don't know how their workload was. And so then I came in and she's already tired, maybe. Like, I have no idea where we were on that 48-hour spectrum. So that didn't feel great.
How long did she stay after your delivery?
I don't think very long. I think that she stayed around and probably asked us if there was anything else she could do. Then it was like, we'll be reaching out, whatever. That was kind of it. I don't remember much after that. I stayed in that room for a little while. They don't keep you in there that long, maybe a couple hours or so, and then they transfer you to the antenatal floor.
And so we went there fairly soon after. We get moved to the antenatal room in pain, swollen, all the things that you don't have any way to prepare for when it's your first baby. You just have no idea. trying to figure out nursing, trying to figure out every three hour feeds and changing the diapers and just all the things. I mean, so much going on, zero rest whatsoever.
You don't really sleep well in the hospital. You know, people are constantly in your room and out your room and checking the baby and checking you and all that stuff. So exhausted, brain fog from everything, trying to recoup on energy and calories and fluid.
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