“Labor is supposed to happen naturally. It’s not this big medical intervention that occasionally happens naturally. It’s this natural process that occasionally needs medical intervention.” Paige Boran is a certified nurse-midwife from Fort Collins, Colorado. She and her colleague, Jess, practice independently at A Woman’s Place. They have rights to deliver babies at the hospital but are not employed through the hospital system so they are not subject to physician oversight. Their patients benefit from a low-intervention environment within a hospital setting but without the restriction of hospital policies. Lily Wyn, our Content Creator and Social Media Admin, joins us today as well! Lily shares why she chose Paige to support her through her current VBAC pregnancy. Lily is a beautiful example of how to diligently interview providers, keep an open mind, process past fears with the provider you choose, and what developing a relationship looks like to create an empowering birthing experience.  Paige shows us just how valuable midwifery care can be, especially when going for a VBAC. If you’re looking for a truly VBAC-supportive provider, this is a great episode on how to do it!  The VBAC Link’s VBAC Supportive Provider List A Woman's Place How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents Full Transcript under Episode Details  Paige: Yeah, so I’m a certified nurse-midwife. I work in northern Colorado in Fort Collins at A Woman’s Place. We’re a small midwifery-owned practice. Right now, there are just two CNMs. That’s the whole practice. It’s just me and my colleague, Jess, who owns it which is really cool because we get to push the boundaries because we are not really locked into the hospital system. We are able to catch babies there but we are not actually employed through the bigger hospital systems which is nice because we don’t have that physician oversight and stuff like that. I think we are able to do a lot more and honor that midwifery care model which is really cool.  Sometimes people feel locked into policies and their overseeing physician and things like that but when it’s just two midwives, we get to do what we want and what feels best for the patient. I really like that. That was a big thing when I first got into the certified nurse midwifery world. I was like, where do I want to work? I had offers from bigger hospital systems and it just didn’t feel like the right fit so working at a small, privately-owned practice felt like the right answer for me so I was able to practice in a way I felt was right for people.  I didn’t want to be locked in by a policy and overseeing physicians. I just wanted to grow with other midwives.  Meagan: Yes. I love that so much. I don’t know. Maybe I should say I know it feels to me– I don’t know it as an actual fact, but that feels like a unique situation and a unique setup to me. We don’t really have that that I know of here in Utah. We either have out-of-hospital CPMs or we have in-hospital CNMs who are just hospital. I know that one hospital system is trying to do the attached birth center, but it is still very different. They are still the hospital umbrella midwives I guess I could say.  So is that unique or is that just something that feels like it? Paige: I think it’s unique because where I came from in Florida, if you were a CNM, you 100% practiced in the hospital which we do but it was that you were owned by a larger group of physicians essentially. Florida was working towards independent practice when I was there. Colorado is an independent-practiced state for nurse practitioners which is really cool because we don’t have to have that oversight. I don’t know if Florida ever got there but I know it varies state to state on if you have to be overseen by a physician or not.  Honestly, that’s why a lot of people when they are ready to become a midwife, if they don’t have independent practice rights as a CNM even if