One of Blooma’s families recently sent us a wonderful letter thanking Sarah Longacre for her Couples Birthing Intensive workshop. With the couple’s permission, we’re sharing a few parts of their letter.

“A few years ago, if you’d have told me that I’d be doing yoga during my pregnancy and giving birth with a midwife outside of a hospital I never would have believed you…It just seems to be so non-traditional…but the funny thing is, the reverse is true! It is crazy how powerful knowledge can be.”

See below for more! Everyone gets something different out of Sarah’s birthing intensive. If you’ve taken it, what did you think? (And if you want to take it, the next one is Oct. 22. Sign up now under education/events!)

xo,

Alisa & the women of Blooma

__

Sarah Longacre

Dear Sarah,

My husband and I want to send you our sincere thanks. We signed up for your Couple’s Birthing Intensive class not quite sure what to expect (“why were we going to have to do yoga during a class about birthing?!” “why should we worry about how to move during labor?…you’re on your back on a bed and you just push…” ”we don’t want to learn about mediation, that’s not something we ‘do’”.) But we left class with our minds so full of positive, useful, new information! It was extremely thought provoking — so thought provoking in fact, that we’ve since changed our entire birth plan!

… (In) your class when we learned (among many other things) about midwives and home births and birth centers…and more importantly the medical interventions so readily available at hospitals. That knowledge, combined with some of our own personal experiences (we’ve spent A LOT of time in many hospitals caring for sick family members) brought us to do some further research on our options for giving birth…

… We searched online for birth centers in the Twin Cities and found one in St. Louis Park. We had never heard of a birth center before your class. The following day, I went to yoga at Blooma in St. Paul, and after class talked with the doula who taught the class. I asked her if there were any other birth centers in the Twin Cities … She said, “there are two, and you’re standing in the second one.” I had no idea! We quickly signed up for a tour and fell in love. The midwives and environment at Health Foundations in St. Paul were just what we were looking for, all in a location so close to our home in Mendota Heights.

We’re now just over 3 weeks into our care at Health Foundations and have never been more comfortable in our pregnancy and birth plan. We truly can picture our positive birth happening at Health Foundations under the expert care of their two attending midwives. My husband feels more engaged in the process than ever before, which is such a comforting feeling for him. At no point in the first 33 weeks of our pregnancy could we say this.

And I don’t want to stop my thank you note there… I also want to comment on the prenatal yoga classes I’ve been taking at Blooma Edina and Blooma St. Paul. I “found” Blooma because I had been taking Pilates during the first half of my pregnancy, but there got to a point where I worried that some of the exercises just weren’t safe for a pregnant lady anymore. I worried about abdominal separation. My Pilates instructors agreed that without taking private lessons where they could modify the exercises for someone who is pregnant, I shouldn’t continue.

I looked around for a place that would offer prenatal Pilates, but to no avail. I DID however, find Blooma in the course of my search, and thank goodness for that… I have been utterly comfortable in each prenatal yoga class I’ve taken in Blooma because I know it is SAFE for me.

But I didn’t realize that signing up for prenatal yoga at Blooma would open me up to such a supportive community and a place to become empowered and more informed. I’ve taken a couple other educational workshops at Blooma and been happy about my time investment after each one. And, after every prenatal class, I’ve left feeling like I have new resources to go to (whether it be other clients or the instructors) if I have questions in my pregnancy. How wonderful it has been to spend the last couple months of my pregnancy in the company of other women going through the exact same thing!

A few years ago, if you’d have told me that I’d be doing yoga during my pregnancy and giving birth with a midwife outside of a hospital I never would have believed you… It just seems to be so non-traditional… but the funny thing is, the reverse is true! It is crazy how powerful knowledge can be.

You and the staff at Blooma have changed the course of our pregnancy and birth, unarguably one of THE most important times in our life. For that we are eternally grateful. We look forward to hopefully sharing an immensely positive birth story with you in the near future when our baby girl arrives!

Thank you, Blooma.

Warm Regards,

Sarah & Cliff