S23 E7: How Did We Get Here?

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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. Additionally, midwives Jennifer Crawford and Elizabeth Fuell have also not returned our request for comment.
This season is dedicated with love to Malik. You don't know me, you don't know me well at all

You don't know anybody

Until you talk to someone Someone Here's Amanda. I heard from a friend of mine that they heard one of the Origins moms had lost her baby.
And nobody knew who. And I said, there's no way that it's not Markita because I haven't heard from her.
I felt it in my heart. I knew something terrible had happened and I just didn't know what it was.
It had to have been a couple of days later. She left her review.
That's when me and her reconnected. And she was talking with Kristen.
And Kristen created a survivors group on Facebook that has reached 40 plus women now that have all had traumatic births with origins. Here's Markita.
Amanda, I was texting her whenever I was actually in labor. after I left home, I hadn't really talked to anybody.
We were actually all in a mom group message. They had asked about me and I never said anything in the group message.
And I guess they had asked the birth and center about me. Somebody told me that initially they didn't really say anything about it.
But then I guess whenever people did find out what happened, they told them it was a fluke that it happened to me. They, of course, didn't take any accountability for their incompetence.
They've responded to several things and I just don't even read it because a lot of it is just really upsetting. something that I learned after building a community and after talking to more people and hearing stories, I definitely heard that my situation was talked about and that my situation shouldn't have happened and that it wasn't the first time that something like this has happened.
Kristen reached out. We ended up

connecting. She told me that she had finally come to a place to where she could express what had happened to her.
And whenever she did, she's seen my review. She said her heart dropped.
We connected and it has been beautiful history since.

It's really amazing to have people there to support you and help you and hold you and just be there in a time of need. Here's Kristen.
I stumbled across Markita's review, which was written in August that year. so I was writing my review about a month or two later.
I don't remember exactly what Markita's review said verbatim, but it essentially talks about how her perfectly healthy son Malik was in the womb for nine months. She went into labor naturally, was at the birth center for many, many, many, many hours.
And her son was in distress. There was thick meconium present and her midwife, Jennifer Crawford, was barely present and hardly monitoring her during this time.
Jennifer was able to get her license through the state of Texas in May of 2022, a few months after my son was born. How great could her training be when the hours that she was allegedly being trained and overseen by other midwives, as we know, didn't happen? So how much was she actually being trained? We don't know.
When Markita had thick meconium coming out and was using all the towels available to them, Jennifer didn't even come in to ask why they were using all the towels in the room. That's something that sticks out with me a lot, is her utter disregard and lack of urgency during Markita's labor.
It was almost as if nothing could go wrong during labor and delivery. Jennifer was actually one of my favorite midwives, and I trusted her more than anyone else.
I felt like I had grown a relationship with her more than anyone else. Markita did not feel that way.
She was very cold and aloof towards Markita. Markita and her best friend, they arrive at the ER at Baylor University Medical Center.
Jennifer didn't go with Markita. What was Jennifer doing? During these hours of time that had passed, was she texting somebody? Was she playing Candy Crush on her phone? What was she doing while this little boy was in Markita's womb and struggling to survive? These are things that stick out to me in hearing Markita's story and then comparing it to mine.
But something that is quite the same is Jennifer's lack of understanding or recognizing when something is wrong. And something was very wrong in both of our cases.
And she failed to realize it, whether that's from her lack of training, lack of regard, I don't know. But it's cost people everything.
Marquita left her review and they responded. This is what they said.
We hesitate on responding to this as a mother's grieving heart is something we would never wish upon anyone. We would love the opportunity to go over your birth with another midwife as a mediator if that is ever a possibility.
At this point, we cannot continue to remain quiet without being able to defend ourselves. We would like to reply to your statements.
Giving the birthing mother and partner space to build oxytocin is a common recommendation for labor. If at any time the mother desires to have all support people present, she can.
It was a suggestion due to a loud birth space. The suggestion is brought up in prenatal care.
The waiting room and the birth suite were separated by a door that was purposely not shut all the way. Midway free team was outside the door on the other side of the suite.
All vitals show we were in the suite very often, more when needed. So this particular statement is responding to Markita's claim that Jennifer was hardly ever in the room.
And I would like to combat this last little tidbit that they leave responding to Markita's review saying, all vital show we were in the suite very often, more when needed. This is not true.
If they were in the room as often, instead of sending a student or whoever their assistant midwife was in to tell Marquita to stop using towels for the meconium that she was leaking, Jennifer would have known that Marquita was leaking thick meconium and that that is a sign of distress. Let's pause there and let's talk about meconium.
Meconium is when a baby releases its bowels in the womb. Even if the meconium is not thick, that baby could still aspirate meconium and still could have its lungs filled and blocked with meconium.
Marquita was using all of the towels and origins to mop up the meconium that was being leaked. It's not like it was just a little bit here and there, copious amounts.
I'm not a medical professional, but from what I understand about meconium and stories I've heard about meconium, this tells me that this was definitely something that needed to be taken more seriously. And for whatever reason, it was not.
But we'll continue. Your midwifery care team consisted of a primary LMCPM Jen, a birth assistant, also LMCPM and student.
Jen was the only person not of color on your birth team that day. Grace had nothing to do with any treatment or medical decisions.
Jen went to the only white person of Markita's birth team and said, you're the only person that I can talk to. So to move on, their response to Markita's review, electronic medical records cannot be altered.
An edit audit can clearly be shown. Charting was also done by others.
Meconium was discussed per protocol. Shared decision making was made by you and your partner opting to stay at the birth center when it was first discovered.
I think it's important to note here that Origins used a charting system called Maternity Neighborhood, where they had one login where every midwife could use to log in and make charts and edits as needed. And should students be editing those logs and making those changes? No.
Which just from a logistical standpoint makes absolutely zero sense for any type of business and operation. Right.
They were supposed to sign their names at the bottom of appointment interactions, but sometimes it was your loving midwives or on mine, it was just Jen. It's not foolproof.
People could go in and they could lie. And we would like to think that people don't do that.
So moving on, I feel confident no rules or regulations were broken. When something went out of my scope and birth was not imminent, I immediately initiated a transfer of care by having a student call EMS and every protocol was followed.
I opted to not wait for EMS, which was taking too long. My frustration is when the other midwife was ignored when directing your driver to the proper location for a higher level of care where hospital staff was

waiting outside for you. This delayed critical treatment.
So you can tell that it is Jennifer responding to this because at this point she says, I, I immediately initiated da da da da da. According to Markita, the midwife that was there didn't know what to say to the ER physician that came to them.
So that tells me that you all were not present in the room enough to know what had been happening in the last several hours of Markita being at Origins. And Markita was in labor for a long time.
Now, it's also important to note that Origins often contracts their assistant midwives. So these assistant midwives do not actually work for Origins.
Now, whether or not they're familiar with Baylor, that's up for speculation. We don't know.
And were they licensed, to your knowledge? It depends on who you talk to. When Markita left her review, Origins, only a couple days later, created a post either on their public page or within their private page offering Myers cocktails and I believe $100 to anyone who left five star reviews.
What's a Myers cocktail? It's an IV solution. Origins offered a lot more than just birthing services and IV therapy was one of them.
I actually have the post right now. It's a screenshot.
It's in the Origins birth community posted by Caitlin Wages. Exciting post.
Good morning, beautiful Origins community. It's time for another review contest.
This must be completed by August 31st, but we know y'all will be racing to the finish line quicker than that. The first 10 people that have not already done so, if you have, get your partner, mom, doula, etc.
To leave us a Google review about your amazing experience at Origins for both locations, receive a free Myers cocktail valued at $199. It must actually have a written review and not just stars.
Everyone else gets $100 Origins bucks

to use for anything we offer at Origins. This can be supplements, labs, massage therapy, chiropractic care, etc, etc.
Not only do you help us spread awareness about the beauty of midwifery care, but you can get extra healthy in the process. Go post your reviews and comment here when done.
And then they cited the links below. I think someone counted like over 20 reviews that had flooded in after that post was made.
I did look for other reviews and I did read some. These are very serious stories and ours wasn't the first and it wasn't the last.
I began finding these people and messaging them. I looked for them on Yelp because you can message people on Yelp.
I looked for them on Facebook and I direct messaged them there. I was joining every DFW crunchy mom natural birth group that I could.
And I was posting my story in every mom group that I could be a part of in

the Dallas, Texas region. And Origins found out people were sending them screenshots, letting

them know that, hey, this woman is starting to speak out about her story. I started forming this

group called Survivors of Origins Birth and Wellness. So anytime anyone looked up Origins,

they would also see our group, which I'd hoped would make people at least stop for a second and look and think hmm that's strange I wonder what this is about I don't exactly remember who joined first it was a few women and it was a little quiet at first nobody was really saying their or anything, but then we started getting more and more people joining or trying to join our group. I messaged Markita.
I found her through Facebook while I was forming the group. So I first messaged her November 10th of 2023.
I just pulled up our messages. I was like, my name is Kristen.
I was a patient at Origins almost two years ago. And I barely nearly lost my son in my life to their lack of competence and knowledge.
I saw your view for them. I apologized for what had happened to her and that Jennifer was involved after what had happened to me.
And I told her, you know, if she just wanted somebody to talk to, I was here. Or if she wanted join our group that I had made a group for women like her and like me to come together and maybe find some justice.
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Meaningfulbeauty.com slash skincare. Eventually, Markita responded to me and she joined the group.
And then I posted my story in the group and then she posted hers and then other people started to post theirs, talking about all kinds of different things happening in pregnancy, failures to assess gestational diabetes and address other abnormalities and concerns and near misses, dating back years. Some of these people had births in like the 20 teens under different care, under ownership when it was Amy, Tate, and Gina and Caitlin.
For example, in one story, her baby was born after mine. We were there at the same time, and she was being seen by Jennifer as well.
She didn't know that she was unlicensed, and during her time as well, Jennifer was also supervising another midwife and saying that this midwife was a midwife in training. While Jennifer herself was the student.
Yes, she was training other midwives. This is someone I met through the group.
We'll call her Jane. Jane had reported this to me through direct message.
She was saying how in her birth class, one of them lost their baby. It was really shocking and so sad to see all of these negative experiences.
I did not know Amanda at the time, but Markita knew Amanda. They were at Origins together.
They were pregnant at the same time, in the same birth class. Their due dates were like days apart.
That's how Markita knew Amanda and brought Amanda to us. At first, I was skeptical.
I was like, I don't know. Not because of Amanda, but I was just skeptical of anybody at that point because I knew that Origins was trying to figure out what we were talking about, figure out what we were doing.
Origins Birth and Wellness, they had what they called a community group, which was private. You could enter through requesting to enter the group and you had to be an Origins client.
Everybody that was in the survivors group was in the Origins group. At one point in time, various of us left at different times for different reasons.
For me, I left pretty soon after I gave birth to my son just because I couldn't bear to see the word Origins pop up on my feed every time I opened up Facebook. But there were some that stayed in there because the moms would talk about all kinds of stuff.
Crunchy Solutions or their births. There is also community gatherings and things like that.
I mean, Origins created a very large client pool and made sure that they were all interconnected through their Origins community. And they did a lot together.
They talked a lot together. When I started the Survivors Group November of last year, there were several members who were still a part of that Origins group.
And they used their own identity. So every mom was welcome.
They just hadn't been very vocal about their experiences because it was pretty widely known amongst the community that if you spoke out about your experience or shed any kind of negative feelings towards origins, that you would be contacted by Gina and Caitlin directly. and anybody who had supported us in any kind of way or anyone they even thought supported us,

they started booting from the group. Worst case scenarios, they slapped a few cease and desist orders on a couple of people from what I understand.
This was a response concerning the birth of my son from Gina and Caitlin. It says, Dear Kristen, we are saddened by the recent developments on social media regarding your birth experience with Origins.
We would have loved the opportunity to process with you personally to address your concerns. Please note Origins has and always will maintain thorough policies and procedure protocols for managing pregnancy, labor, and delivery and postpartum care that is in line with ACOG standards, as well as Texas midwifery bylaws, in addition to up-to-date best practices.
We are blessed to have great backup and consulting OBGYNs and maternal fetal medicine specialists for complicated cases like yours. On January 17, 2022, we contacted our backup OB for a breach presentation faxed over your records and followed up with you on January 19 to ensure you were getting the care that you and your baby needed.
As far as your concerns regarding having an unlicensed provider involved in your care, all our midwifery interns work under the supervision of a licensed NARM-approved preceptor who oversees every patient interaction through your care with us.

We are so very sorry you had a traumatic birth experience,

but are very grateful that you and your baby

got the emergent care that you needed.

If there's anything we can do to help you

on your healing journey,

please reach out to us personally.

This is our direct email address and contact information.

Gina Thompson, CPM-LM, and Caitlin Wages, CPM-PM LM, co-founders of Origins Birth and Wellness Collective Dallas. That was their response to my review.
But they also knew you had started this Facebook group. Yes, they knew because I had become public.
All they said was that they follow ACOG guidelines in adherence with Texas's bylaws for midwifery and that their students are never without supervision. So without really saying it, saying you're lying, we don't believe you, but this is what was happening.
This is what happened to me. I know I'm not crazy.
I know that I saw Jennifer in that room several times by herself without anyone else present. What are your thoughts now when you read that? Honestly, it doesn't make me as angry as it used to.
It's just really sad because they're outright lying. And I know that.
It is really disappointing to see people who were held in such high regard in the community be so callous and to lie so blatantly to someone who trusted them and paid them for good care. I see that as an insincere attempt to give some sort of politically correct statement and to cover their own liabilities.
I think they knew what they had done. I really do.
And they were just trying to convince me that they didn't do it. Gina and Caitlin were very quick to disregard us on their social media platforms, especially.
They really denounced us in those groups saying that we were just angry moms that weren't happy with the experiences that we had had. There's a lot of biblical references used in these groups.
Caitlin, she made two or three posts citing our group. One of them, she was like, you are probably aware, but there are a small group of women who are very, very vocal on social media.
This is upsetting to say the least and disheartening. They can neither confirm or deny our claims because of our privacy, HIPAA and whatnot.
But essentially, what she says is, it is our passion to be in service to you, the women who run the world. We are coming to you to ask that you remember who we really are, to remember that the words being used against us are not a universal truth in that a conversation requires two parts.
What is being portrayed is only one part of a larger picture. This is a very trying time for Origins team as a whole, and your love, support, and words of encouragement are always appreciated.
Or just one piece of a larger picture. She is completely brushing underneath the rug death.
We're talking about negligent death and saying, ah, this is just something that happens. This is just a part of our story.
You know who we really are. She also states in that specific post that conversations are two parts.
Well, she didn't want to have conversations with us. If anything, she's drawing more attention to it.
That's what we thought too, but we were like, that's fine. Let her.
Even though it hurt to see her continually deny and misconstrue our real lived experiences. in other, she asks for Origins moms to tell their stories.
And the responses from these moms, they came up in the arms. It was very disturbing to see what some of these women were saying about us.
I mean, one of them even saying that how she had wanted to physically attack us for saying anything negative about origins at all and that origins were sunshine and rainbows. Other moms commenting under Caitlin's post saying how they're the sacrificial lamb and that they'll get through this.
Another mom on there saying that we just need to make our stories go viral and redeem origins. And mind you, at this point, all we had done was share our stories on Facebook platforms, like on mom groups and things like that as a response to these, how would you call these posts? They're like testaments to action.
You know, she's like rallying her troops, getting these moms all riled up about what these angry moms are saying about her and her team. The amount of like brainwashing or echo chamber that was kind of happening here where Caitlin and Gina had all of this social power over this large group of women and were able just to say something.
And to those women, it was just true. Enough for them to completely disregard severe cases.
Caitlin had people trying to get into our group. We actually had an ex-employee we didn't know.
And she had gotten into our group claiming she had a bad birth with origins and birth trauma and all this stuff. She was sending screenshots to Caitlin and Gina and the nurse practitioner.
We were able to narrow down who that was and I kicked her out. She left me like crazy voice messages, blew up my phone for an hour.
There were like 14 messages in between each one of my messages. But that is how serious Gina and Caitlin were taking our accusations, so much so that they wanted people inside of our group to tell them what was going on there.
And that wasn't fair because the group was built for women like us to have a safe place to talk without someone running to Caitlin and Gina and telling them what we said. I mean, we're talking about vulnerable things.
You're talking about birthing a human and all the things that go wrong in that. And there's a lot of very sensitive information in there.
And so for someone to be in that group, it's a violation of one, the group rules, but two, of the privacy of everybody that is there. Can we talk about the Facebook post? That big Facebook post that Jennifer made? Yes.
She starts with saying, super vulnerable post. So many times I have thought of what I would write when I could share my side.
Although very lengthy, it's not even close to every detail. I did seek legal counsel prior to finally speaking out.
Finding an attorney to actually speak to me was difficult as there has never been a malpractice case. I actually prayed for one so my side could be heard.
HIPAA has not been violated as these families have publicly opened up for discussion with previews on every platform. And then she goes on to say, it's even harder to open up after being called a racist midwife, a perpetrator, a liar, stupid, incompetent, and the list could go on and on.
They say as a midwife, it's not if it happens, it's when. As a student, I witness transfers and even heartbreaking bad outcomes.
Bad outcomes do not equal bad midwives. Bad outcomes happen all the time in the hospital, yet oftentimes the hospital is quick to throw midwives under the bus.
But that being said, it's not all hospitals or hospital staff are like that. Thankful for the collaboration I do have.
She goes on to say, I believe it's a lack of relationship that she had with me, Markita, and Amanda because they had such a high volume of clients that they've encountered so much hate. Even when their numbers dropped, there was no way to give clients the time they needed to build a relationship compared to small practices.
Clients that truly know me and my heart know that I would never put a client or baby in danger. There are risks associated with out-of-hospital birth.
There are situations that can turn quickly, and shared decision-making is made when pink flags pop up. She goes on to say, you know, she works hard not to practice in fear and remain calm.
She says she finished her primary births. that didn't count even when I caught, but my heart in that moment

was full. It sounds like saying like I attended births I didn't even have to attend just to be supportive.
Yeah. And here is something I would like to say to that matter.
Like a lot of people, they're like, well, I don't feel that way about the consequences that my actions caused. Like I had a heart full of love when I was neglecting you and your baby.
Just because you feel good about what you're doing or you have the best intentions in mind doesn't mean that you're faultless. And something very interesting that I see happen when you're talking to people who've perpetuated trauma or negligence and things of that nature, they say, oh, I would never hurt anybody.

And maybe Jennifer never hurt anybody out of malice, but she did things knowingly that put me and many other people at more risk than we needed to be put in.

And she made those decisions without recognizing the fullest extent of the consequences, which these are very high stakes situations. Consequences are death and severe injury.
So that's where fault lies, regardless of how you feel about it. Okay.
So she kind of outs herself too. She said, I was doing full clinic alone in 2021 and was paid a very small amount to do so.
So she was attending clinic alone in 2021 without her license. She was not a licensed midwife.
She apparently had finished all of her births in October of 2020, but by 2021, she still was not a licensed midwife. She still had not passed her examinations or completed her education to become licensed.
And then she says, September 2021, my preceptor was going to leave the practice by the end of the year. She was put on call with a brand new CNM who ended up quitting in the middle of the night and I was left to cover her shift with no sleep.
Then a client complained it was me because she asked for the CNM who would be my assistant and come towards the pushing stage. She delivered clients who were no student on their forms, but I was reassured that I was a graduate student.
So here she's stating that she was reassured that she was a graduate student, even though she was not legally licensed by the state. I was surprised she said this part.
This is how many DFW midwives practice where I worked. I can name at least five off the top of my head.
So she can name at least five people who operated illegally as students with origins. All have seen what is happening to me and none have reached out.
And then she says, my original preceptor asked me to have the other owners be my preceptors. And I agreed.
This was after a devastating loss, literally that day. I didn't even get a day off to process.
People only cared about covering themselves. She cites a loss that happened during that time that she was unlicensed and operating by herself.
Holy shit.

I can't believe she put this on the internet. She said the quiet part out loud several times here.
Oh, you're telling me. If you talk to any midwife in the area, it usually takes years with proper education and guidance to become a licensed midwife.
So I don't think that she got the proper education that she needed. I don't believe that Gina and Caitlin were doing her any kind of good.
She was being told she was a quote graduate student and that that somehow absolved her of needing to have a license before practicing on her own. Right.
And somehow that means that we can exclude that information from the clients that you're seeing, that your clients don't want to be assured that you're licensed by the state. And then she says, they said it was fine.
She signed her charts accordingly and state guidelines allegedly were followed with a licensed midwife during the actual delivery. And my preceptor within an hour away.
Preceptors are supposed to be in clinic with you all the time. Within an hour away is wild when you're thinking about birth and how quickly things can happen.
And honestly, like I could not be more grateful that she aired out all the things. She did.
She damned herself and then damned everyone around her. She's basically saying origins didn't even allow her to process that loss that she had to handle on her own as a student.
Yes, that is a lot too. I mean, think of it from an outside perspective.
You have Jennifer here who probably feels like she has to do her best. She has to be in all the places at once.
She has to be at work because if she's not there, we're going to fail all of these women and their babies.

And there is certainly a power imbalance between the owners and licensed midwives who have years of experience, who are owning these clinics, who are clearly looked at as the leaders of this community, and a student who's being told, oh, you're a graduate student, it's fine. Whatever they told her to make her feel like this was okay.
And the fact that she's saying, I also saw five other people, if what she's alleging is true, acting under these same conditions, that's extremely concerning. I can't believe that she posted all this online.
She goes on to talk about all of our stories with detail. She was claiming that this was in response to you guys leaving a negative review.
So then she goes on to respond in detail to your actual reviews, which included your medical information, essentially. Yes.
And she goes into Markita's in detail, as well as mine. In mine, she describes fumbling with the handheld sauna that she had zero training with.
And then she called a licensed midwife to confirm my son's positioning, which was transverse. Later, they charted in my charts that they felt a limb, but they never said that they felt a limb.
Here's the thing. If you think you felt a limb in my pelvis, why didn't you do a cervical examination? I asked her if I needed one.
She said, no, you're getting a C-section. Don't worry about it.
Just because my son was transverse, there was no comment and no talking about feeling a limb deep in my pelvis. So they added that afterwards.
But she said that they all prayed and breathed when mom and baby were finally stable, which I found this to be a little rubbing salt in the womb because both me and my son were unable to breathe by ourselves for like the first 24 hours of his

life. I was on a ventilator and my son was on a CPAP.
So the fact that you're able to breathe

after we were stable is a little comical. But anyway, she talks about Markita's story in detail,

claiming that she had told Markita when she had started leaking meconium, oh, you're leaking

meconium, and that Markita declined meconium. And that Marquita

declined to be sent to the hospital, that there was no issue there. And then she goes into Amanda's

story. At the end, she says, I understand upset clients.
I will never be angry when a mother has

lost a baby. She earns the right to hate me.
But for your once preceptor to want to ruin you,

her time will come. She also just hired my recent student that I was pressured by Origins to

Thank you. But for your once preceptor to want to ruin you, her time will come.
She also just hired my recent student that I was pressured by Origins to push through. If I'm so awful, why would you ever want someone who is trained under me? She then ends the long monologue with, I know none of this is over.
I dream of a fresh start, but I'm sure the only way that can happen is with moving forward with legal action, which will most likely have to happen. I've sat in silence praying and praying.
I believe out of that I was given legal counsel, which reminded me of my voice. So she prayed and she believed that legal counsel was sent to her to finally give her her voice to speak out against us angry, hateful women.

Allegedly, on Jennifer's Facebook post that she made in regards to me, Amanda, and Marquita,

she said that she had recently spoke to legal counsel, and this was the only reason why she was speaking out. And I'm like, I don't know what attorney told you that you could talk about my

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See nerdwallet.com for details. It's being categorized in the Facebook group post by like Caitlin Wages and Gina Thompson as these women are on a witch hunt.
What are their other claims that you guys just didn't like your birth experience essentially? Yes, there was a lot of that. Here's Amanda.
We're so sorry you didn't get the birth experience that you wanted. That was talked about a lot.
There was a post on one of our survivor's pages. It was her personal page.
It was her birth story. Jennifer Crawford commented on her personal post and said, these women are out to get us, essentially.
They're trying to close us down and I'm going to lose my job and I'm going to be homeless and not going to be able to feed my kids. Why would you say that to somebody who was expressing their concern for what happened to them? It's intimidating.
I posted my whole review in a Crunchy Mom group and the birth class instructor said some horrific things to me. She said, I have a bit of a unique perspective.
I teach birth classes at Origins to primarily Origins clients. I have attended countless class reunions and am in so many class group texts.
I cannot keep track. I hear and have heard so many birth stories from Origins clients over the years.
Most of their birth stories are, strictly speaking, fairly uneventful aside from glorious part where new life is summoned and welcomed. On occasion, someone shares a story where everyone knows to credit the good outcome to the expertise of the Origins midwives.
And on other occasions, someone is wildly unhappy with their care. As I recall, Amanda, you complained vigorously about me to the front desk, and when asked to contact me directly to provide feedback, you declined.
You complained to me about your doula not being attentive enough, and when I suggested you express this to your doula, you declined. I think you fired your doula instead and decided not to hire another.
You also complained in class about your appointments. You were totally unhappy with everyone's services during pregnancy, yet you stayed and were not surprisingly unhappy with your care and labor.
My apologies if your husband didn't like my response to his query about how soon after birth you'd be able

to unload 50 pound sacks of feed when someone's personal desires and goals are in direct opposition to best practices, there aren't kid gloves soft enough to deliver the answer. He had asked six weeks after birth, if you hold as much weight as a baby, and then what happens after six weeks? Am I free to like pick up a bag of feed or, and I don't even think that's what he said.
I think she made that up. We don't know.
We've never done this before. And she kept putting him off and she said some messed up stuff.
A lot of like sperm donor type jokes and things like that. My husband's here every week at this class.
He's been so supportive this whole time. He does absolutely everything I need.
He takes care of us and my family. He's not just like a sperm donor.
It just was so inappropriate. And everybody's like, oh, that's just how she teaches the class.
Well, it's rude because all of these men have shown up to all these classes. They're our husbands.
They're our life partners. And it was every class.
And I got to the point where I said something to one of my midwives and I commented back. I said, you are correct.
I should have confronted you when you continuously spoke to the men in our class like they were the scum of the earth. But after I brought it up with one of the midwives, you were better, so I didn't feel the need to bring it up.
I did express my concern about my doula, and I did take your advice and try to have a conversation with her and the company she came from. They weren't helpful, so I decided to move forward without her.
When I asked the midwives if I should hire someone else, they said I would be okay without. Origins is full of smoke and mirrors.

I was fooled like many others. And she goes back and forth and she said some really mean shit.
There are a lot of midwives on these groups and on social media that are really crossing boundaries. That's where the friendship thing comes in.
The birth class instructor, she was technically their client as well. And she became their birth instructor.
And so she was a friend and colleague of these midwives, and she defended them to death. And in these groups, if I posted and said, hey, I'm looking for a midwife who does vaginal delivery after cesarean, and then you have all of these midwives on there saying, oh, you know who does that? And then they start commenting and posting all of these other midwives names.
Just because you're friends with someone or maybe even co-workers with someone doesn't mean that you had experience with them as a patient. And there's so much of that going on.
I don't feel like we can, as moms, go into a group and post about a bad experience without being totally torn down by either people that had a good experience or other midwives who don't really know. That's the thing is abuse.
It doesn't happen to everyone by the same person. People can go into these different birth centers and yeah, maybe Susie was able to pull her baby out herself.
She had no problems. Great for Susie.
That's fantastic. But that doesn't change it for Sally and what she went through.
And it seems so odd to me that somebody thinks that they could judge how somebody

else's birth went and to just have that blind confidence to the point where you're victim blaming. And there are midwives on there that defend to the death other midwives.
There was a CPM who isn't involved with origins. I actually found another woman who had used her as their main midwife, she ended up having a miscarriage and hemorrhaging.
And the midwife had all of these strange things to tell her like, eat more steak and you'll be fine. You don't need to go to the hospital.
My friend actually wrote a post in one of these crunchy mom groups and said, do not recommend this midwife. Here's what happened.
And other people commented and said, oh my gosh, I had also a weird situation with her. There were several people that commented.
And then here comes her preceptor that comments and said, I've been in 100 plus birth spaces with this midwife and she would never. You should take this offline and talk to her.
She would never do that. She did do it.
And she said, I'm not invalidating your experience. And I commented and said, actually, you are invalidating her experience because you said that this woman would never do that.
I just find it so strange that we're doing that and that other midwives are doing that to patients.

It just seems like, especially if you're in the business of medicine, in any capacity,

that you would be open to adapting what you know based off of new information and wanting

that feedback so that you can ensure that the people you're birthing with do feel safe,

do feel supported.

But you would have to start by believing them first. And that's what it sounds like is not happening.
Yes, there was a lot of moms. I can't believe this is happening.
We loved our experience. I can't believe these women would say these things, stuff like that.
Why is it such a big deal in these situations where we're jumping down each other's throats because somebody had a bad experience.

I never said that your good experience was invalid.

I never said that nobody could have had a good experience there because I didn't.

Why do these people need to attack women for having a bad experience?

I don't get it.

Is it a cult?

Are we brainwashed?

It just seems inappropriate. And I think we've crossed that boundary.
Here's Kristen. I called many attorneys.
In the state of Texas,

statute of limitations for malpractice is two years. Before my son turned two years old,

I reamped the efforts to find an attorney. We came across a family friend who did malpractice

insurance. And I told him my story.
And he said, Kristen, I'll tell you what no one else is

Thank you. They're not going to take it because, one, these people don't carry malpractice insurance.
Two, it's very, very hard to sue for malpractice in the state of Texas. To point out here that, honestly, it doesn't matter.
Even if they did have us sign something that says that we can't sue them for malpractice, licensed midwives in the state of Texas are not required to carry malpractice insurance. Attorneys are not going to take cases where they're not going to get paid out anything.
Me and Markita started meeting whenever we could. I mean, she's a nurse and me working part-time and then also caring for my son full-time.
It could get difficult at times, but we would bring our laptops, all of our medical paperwork and things like that. And we'd sit at a table in a coffee shop and just dive into this stuff.
The big question that we were trying to figure out, how did we get here? I was trying to understand where legally they had messed up and where they had violated a direct code. Also trying to help Markita with that as well, because what happened to her son was absolutely preventable.
And I also wanted her to get recourse, knowing that I couldn't get recourse myself through malpractice insurance. Here's Markita.
I actually started to reach out to attorneys because what I experienced was definitely negligence. After speaking to a couple of attorneys, they informed me that I wouldn't be able to pursue any kind of legal action against CPMs under medical negligence because they aren't considered medical professionals.
It was very difficult calling different attorneys and having to repeat the story of what happened to my son. It was just like a knife stabbing me in my heart and twisting every time I have to call and repeat and repeat.
It gets overwhelming. It doesn't help the healing process because, you know, it just brings all that hurt and anger back.
I am a registered nurse and I'm in the medical field. I have always thought that in order to be a midwife, you had to be a nurse.
I thought that was the only route to become a midwife. Whenever we started looking up credentials, we then realized that,

wait a minute, she is not a nurse. She don't even have a medical background or degree.

So that's whenever we figured all of that out and the

rabbit hole just got deeper and deeper. Next time on Something Was Wrong.
In the prosecutor's email to me alleging that they do not have to report criminal activity, she also discusses how they contract expert witnesses. So it is another licensed midwife who are overseeing these cases.
Kristen did a lot of legwork and reached out to a lot of people when we first started doing all of this. She was trying to get somebody to tell our story.
A local news organization, an investigative journalist actually reached out and was willing to do a story. I wanted to do everything that I could to prevent this from happening.
So I figured I would talk to the powers who could possibly change that. I went to the Texas Medical Association with Markita and Amanda.
We told them our stories. And that is what set us on the road to legislation.
Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and produced by executive producer Tiffany Reese, associate producers Amy B. Chesler and Lily Rowe, with audio editing and music design by Becca High.
Thank you to our extended team, Lauren Barkman, our social media marketing manager, and Sarah Stewart, our graphic artist. Thank you to Marissa, Travis, and our team at WME, Wondery, Jason and Jennifer, our cybersecurity team, Darkbox Security, and my lawyer, Alan.
Thank you endlessly to every survivor who has ever trusted us with their stories. And thank you, each and every listener, for making our show possible with your support

and listenership. Special shout out to Emily Wolf for covering Gladrag's original song, You Think You, for us this season.
For more music by Emily Wolf, check out the episode notes or your favorite music streaming app. Speaking of episode notes, there every week you'll find episode-specific content warnings, sources, and resources.
Until next time, stay safe, friends. If you like Something Was Wrong, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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