Welcome

We are glad you are interested in meeting with us.

Pregnancy Consultation Visit
In our one-hour prenatal consultation visit, please ask about our experience and qualifications, and anything else that may help you in choosing the right care providers for this very special experience. The following information will help you to learn more about what you can expect from your midwifery care.

CNM & LM Practice
Around the Circle Midwifery is combining the best of two types of midwifery care available in Washington: Certified Nurse Midwives and Licensed Midwives. This is a unique practice model, the only one like it in the South Puget Sound, bringing you the benefits of an expanded scope of care that may address the needs of families in birth and beyond. 

Licensed Midwives in Washington have completed a comprehensive midwifery program at a state-accredited school, and have passed the state licensing exam. Program standards are based on those adopted by the International Confederation of Midwives and the International Federation of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Licensed Midwives are trained and authorized to provide complete maternity services. Additionally, the licensed midwives at Around the Circle Midwifery are Certified Professional Midwives (CPM), a nationally recognized certification through the National Association of Registered Midwives.

Certified Nurse Midwives (CNM) are Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (ARNP) who hold advanced degrees in nursing and are nationally certified through the American Midwifery Certification Board. They provide care throughout the lifespan, addressing needs not just in pregnancy, but in all aspects of wellness to include fertility, routine gynecological care, and contraceptive management. 

Our Services 
Our services include individualized and comprehensive prenatal care, instruction in self‑care, nutritional counseling, birth at home or in a free-standing birth center, breastfeeding classes, lactation support, postpartum care for you and your baby, fertility assistance, well woman care from puberty through menopause, and contraception care. We believe you should be an active participant in your healthcare and will make every effort to provide you with information and education regarding all options, so that you and your family may make informed choices about your care. We encourage you to bring your partner, friends or relatives.

Prenatal
We generally set aside one hour for each prenatal visit. We schedule monthly visits until your seventh month, at which time we will begin seeing each other more frequently. During your last month, until your birth, we will want to see you each week. For those planning a homebirth, we will visit you at your home during one of our weekly visits.  In addition to our visits, we encourage you to attend childbirth classes focused on birth in the home or birth center setting.

Throughout your prenatal care we will be talking about your plans, hopes and concerns about childbirth and motherhood. We recognize the birth of your baby as your own special experience and we will be honored to provide the kind of care you desire. We can talk about relaxation techniques and different positions you can use to help you be more comfortable throughout your labor, as well as talk about the experience of labor and birth itself. In the last months of your pregnancy, we will talk about home preparation and the supplies you need to have ready in anticipation of your baby.

As the time of your birth draws near, we may have more frequent contact with you as you begin to feel more imminent. We stay on call 24-hours a day. We can always schedule additional visits if you feel a need. We will come to be with you during labor when your labor becomes active. There will be at least one trained birth assistant, in addition to the midwife, at your birth. During labor we will monitor your vital signs, check on your baby's well-being, and support you in the ways you desire.

After the Birth
After the birth we will continue to carefully monitor you and your baby as you adjust in the immediate postpartum period. We will also talk about care of the infant and mom in the days after birth. We will give your baby a thorough newborn exam by your side and share our findings with you. We will support you and your baby for breastfeeding success while honoring your family's need for bonding and privacy.

The following day we will check in on your new family, to see how you are feeling, how your baby is doing, and if you have any special needs or questions during this unique time of adjustment. We often will visit with you again a few days later to offer breastfeeding support, monitor your health and recovery, and to monitor your baby’s growth. We will offer at least two additional visits in the following six weeks to insure adequate support and a healthy outcome. If you are interested, we can explore the right birth control options for you during this postpartum period. We also offer standard newborn screening tests, follow‑up gynecologic screening, and continued well woman care.

Payment Options
We are able to bill most insurance companies and DSHS for our services. If you plan to pay out-of-pocket, we ask that your bill is paid in full prior to your birth. We have a payment plan and sliding fee scale for people in need. We would like to hear from you at the beginning of your care if you will have difficulty paying the full fees. Please make compensation your responsibility. We greatly appreciate it.
Read about our Payment Services . . . .

We look forward to getting to know you during the next few months as your belly grows round and you ready yourself, and those around you, for the birth of a new little person into your lives. Working with a midwife during pregnancy, labor and birth can be a very special and rewarding experience.

May all go well with you,
Carolee Hall LM, CPM
Megan Felling LM, CPM
Tiffany Heiges CNP, ARNP
Michelle Madrigal, LM, CPM

 

Our Philosophy

As midwives, we believe the practice of midwifery to be distinct from the practice of medicine. Midwifery is a discipline pertaining to a normal cycle of life, the childbearing years.
We base our profession on a model of care which affirms the following:

Families are strong, and capable of great and ordinary things – as care providers we must not stand in the way of their knowledge and inner wisdom, rather, we honor and nurture that strength which is inherently within. We believe that the birth experience belongs to the birthing person and their intimate family. We, as attendants, are guests and witnesses in the lives of others.

You are your primary care provider in your own life and often in the lives of your families. Midwives respect the dignity and rights of the person they serve and strive to work in collaboration with them, supporting people to make informed decisions about their care and to take responsibility for their own well-being.

Physical, emotional, social, cultural, and spiritual factors together contribute to the health of individuals, and play a significant role in childbearing. Each person has a unique experience of pregnancy and childbirth. To the best of our ability, we shall individualize our midwifery care to offer support in a manner which respects and addresses each person's unique needs.

Midwives recognize the value of a consistent care provider throughout the childbearing cycle and offer continuity of care whenever appropriate. We provide health care within a community context. Our practices reflect an awareness and integration of cultural standards, midwifery and medical standards and an ability to network with available social and health care services and resources.

There is an inherent perfection in childbearing and birth as a significant life process, one which does best without interference. We understand that attempts to control the process inevitably alters it, and frequently may harm the delicate balance. We embrace non-intervention consciously, quietly facilitating the spontaneous process of pregnancy, labor and birth, utilizing interventions only as truly necessary for the safety and well-being of parent and child.

Knowledge is to be shared freely – with students, other midwives and health care providers, with pregnant women and their families. Open collaboration creates an atmosphere of peers, co-learners, and community, one in which all participants hold a piece of the truth and all are of value.

We affirm that choice of birth place and birth attendant are basic rights of all birthing people and their families. For there to be authentic choice, we, as midwives will continue to educate and reach out to the public and the medical community, working to insure that safe, accessible and affordable out-of -hospital birth options are available to families regardless of race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, physical disabilities and religious orientation.

 

Our Midwives

Carolee Hall, LM, CPM

Carolee was inspired to become a midwife through her own birth experiences and the loving care she received from midwives during her pregnancies. Not only did they provide a beautiful model of care, but also encouraged her in her path to midwifery. A 2005 Seattle Midwifery School graduate, Carolee preceded her midwifery education with certification as a doula, childbirth educator and lactation educator. During this time she helped found a hospital-based lactation clinic. Breastfeeding support continues to be an important aspect of Carolee's work as a midwife. She returned to Bastyr University in 2017, earning a Master of Arts in Maternal-Child Health Systems where she focused her studies on breastfeeding accommodations in the workplace.

Carolee believes in the sacredness of birth. It is her hope to partner with women and their families throughout the passage to parenthood in order to support their birth journey. She believes this is best done by building a close and respectful relationship that honors the family's inherent knowledge of birth while providing information and encouragement.

Carolee shares her life with Jay, her husband of over thirty years and together they are enjoying the empty nest life while cheering for their four adult children through the adventures of life.  Their loving support and births have made her the midwife she is today.

Megan Felling, LM, CPM

Megan felt called to midwifery before she had ever been to a birth! She had the incredible luck of meeting a homebirth midwife in Madison, WI, who took her on as an intern in 2006. These first birth experiences ignited a passion in Megan that led her to Birthingway College of Midwifery, graduating in 2013. Since, she has had the exceptional privilege of working with many birthing families throughout the Pacific Northwest and abroad. Before relocating to Olympia, she worked with the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders in central Africa and Haiti. She is thrilled to now be part of the team at Around The Circle Midwifery.

Through her midwifery practice Megan strives to improve the way women and families experience pregnancy and family growth. Every family deserves a collaborative and supportive care provider during the powerful and life-changing experiences of pregnancy and birth.

In her free time, Megan enjoys spending time with her niece and nephew, traveling and reading novels.

Tiffany Heiges CNM, ARNP​​​

Tiffany (she/her pronouns) graduated with Bachelor of Nursing Science degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2009 and immediately began a career as a labor and delivery nurse at an Indian Health Services hospital in Alaska. Assisting the births of the indigenous peoples of Alaska is an experience that she will always hold near and dear to her heart.

Throughout her decade of nursing she has had the privilege of attending births at the smallest of rural hospitals and birth centers to one of the largest high-risk hospitals in the country. She has learned from the many nurses, doctors, midwives, and families she has worked with just how special it is to attend laboring persons during this transformative time in their lives and taking with her the knowledge that birth can be better. Motivated to complete her midwifery journey she began graduate school at the University of Cincinnati in 2016. Somewhere in the middle of completing a masters degree and continuing to work full time as a nurse she decided it would be a good idea to have a baby, (I know; crazy, right?!) and birthed a gorgeous little human right here in The Birth House in the spring of 2018. That experience just further affirmed her belief that away from the busy noise of a hospital is where parents are best able to birth. After graduating with her Master of Science in Nurse Midwifery in the spring of 2019 the opportunity to join the people who nurtured her through her pregnancy journey presented itself and she jumped at it and couldn’t be more excited to be joining Around the Circle Midwifery. In addition to her two degrees Tiffany also holds certificates in lactation counseling, S.T.A.B.L.E (neonatal hospital transfer), and intermediate and advanced fetal monitoring.

When she is not busy with women’s health you can almost always find Tiffany outside with her wife Stephanie and daughter Charlotte. As a family they enjoy camping, fishing, clamming, hiking, gardening, and just about anything else you can manage to do in the great outdoors. She also has a love for reading, is completely nerdy for all things birth, and spends as much time on her yoga mat as possible.

Michelle Madrigal, LM, CPM

Michelle’s passion for midwifery started over ten years ago when her sister had her first baby. Although a cesarean delivery became necessary, it was this profound moment of witnessing her sister persevere with so much strength and beauty that Michelle’s path in life was forever changed.

Shortly after, she began pursuing her undergraduate degree with the goal to attend medical school. However, during this time Michelle ultimately discovered that community birth was where she desired to be. Michelle graduated from Seattle University in 2013 with her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry. She went on to attend and graduate from Bastyr University in 2018 with her Master of Science in Midwifery. After school, Michelle took some time off to birth her third and final baby, but shortly came back to work as a birth assistant. She is now absolutely elated to become a part of the team here at Around the Circle Midwifery.

As a midwife, Michelle aims to provide excellent care for all pregnant people and their families. She is passionate about creating relationships through good conversation, evidenced-based information, and collaboration. She also strongly believes that there is great beauty and surprise in birth that is often accompanied by fierce determination and lots of tender, loving care. She strives to be the supportive provider that all people deserve through their life-changing journey of pregnancy and childbirth.

Outside of midwifery, Michelle and her husband enjoy leading a simple life that entails wrangling and raising their three young children, urban backyard chicken adventures, and home improvement projects. Alongside of this magical mundane, Michelle can also be found hiking when it’s summertime and during the winter, binge-watching the latest Netflix series sipping on some savory hot chocolate.