We recently connected with Heather Whitley and have shared our conversation below.

Heather , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

I had to build my practice twice. The first time in Vermont where I spent the first four years as a midwife. Then again in Salt Lake City, Utah where I relocated with my five children.

Rural Vermont was more cottage industry and clients were used to midwives working out of their homes. Midwives are geographically spread out, and there is less competition. My office was in my home and clients would bring over their children to play with my homeschooled children while I held their prenatal visit.

Moving to an urban setting, I realized quickly while working for larger birth center practices, that clients expected midwives to have offices and if I wanted to be successful and competitive with the larger group practices, I needed to invest in professional office space. My first space felt like a dark closet inside the Midwives College of Utah for only $150/month. It was decorated cute and I focused my investment into growth of my social media accounts, gaining traction when I landed a few influencer clients.

In 2020 at the start of the pandemic, I upgraded to a bigger bright new office in a beautiful building in my own neighborhood. It was really scary to sign a three year lease that was eight times the monthly cost of my prior arrangement, but there is truth to “Build it and they will come”. My business effectively doubled through the pandemic and I feel much of this was due to the beautiful new office I took the leap on.

I also did a lot of personal work to connect well and better during consultations with women or couples who were often interviewing several midwives before settling on me. I am also always curating my social media to be honest in who I am, so that women searching online for a midwife can get a feel of me before she steps into my office, The work we do together can be intense and life altering, and in addition to clinical competency, women should feel they have a solid connection with their midwife – as that connection will show up at her birth.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

When I was pregnant with my first of five children 23 years ago, I had not given much thought to childbirth. My first online purchase in 1999 was a book called ‘Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way’ by Susan McCutcheon. It was a bit of an expose on what goes on in American obstetrics. I highly recommend this book for women planning hospital birth or contemplating out of hospital birth. It sufficiently freaked me out about unnecessary obstetrical interventions. I began to ask questions to my female OB, and did not like her answers. Becoming more informed, at eight months pregnant, I switched hospitals and providers to a group of nurse midwives in a different hospital with better statistics regarding birth interventions and outcomes.

Homebirth was not on my radar at that time and Vermont does not permit free standing birth centers. I fell in love with a small practice of three nurse midwives at a hospital and was the first woman to use Hypnobirthing in that facility. The local paper did an article on it. My birth was long and hard but uncomplicated. I did have to fight some nurses on declining epidural and other interventions. Had I not been so prepared ahead of time on the risks of those, I would have probably taken them. I did not like to have to advocate for myself while in labor. We also experienced some drama and trauma in the immediate postpartum (right after birth) when the pediatrician was evaluating the baby where things were happening to her and I, but nothing was being properly explained to us. Years later I pulled my records to understand it… everything was charted as completely normal for both of us, which was not in alignment with the trauma we were experienced.

Despite knowing no one who had chosen homebirth and making our families nervous, we knew there had to be a better and different way to do things. For my second baby, I found a midwife who performed all of the routine pregnancy diagnostics I was used to with an OB, yet gave me highly individualized, personal care. I felt very safe. We are still friends two decades later.

We had an incredibly easy, fast and enjoyable homebirth. It was life altering in contrast to my hospital experience, that I felt more women needed to know about this option. I had a total of four homebirths, and during my third pregnancy in 2005, I enrolled in midwifery school. I wanted to walk with woman in their pregnancy, birth and postpartum journeys in the way I was walked with by different midwives. For so many of us, it is life changing.

Any advice for managing a team?

I have a really good long term team on board that I feel really proud of. I feel this is important for branding. My business is larger than just me and I would rather my practice have the reputation and name than me as an individual. As I grow it gives me freedom to turn over tasks and responsibility to my team which provides me more freedom, improved mental health and personal relationships! I like to keep my ego out of it and grow the brand of the practice. Should I ever consider selling it down the road in retirement, building and branding the practice, not me, will be important.

My long term assistant – an advanced midwife student – has been with me over three years. She is an absolute work horse and treats the practice like her own which is a unique set of personal qualities. For a long time she has been catching babies while I may be setting up equipment as well as servicing my clients in the hours postpartum. I will also call her in prenatally for unique skills she has that may be superior to mine at times. She is highly capable and clinically skilled. She has safely managed hemorrhages with me at home, resuscitated babies and is current in evidence based care. She connects well with our clients and they’ve all loved her. Many mention her in our online reviews. Fortunately for me, she loves the work but is less interested in growing a large practice on her own so this is an excellent fit.

I pay her accordingly which is double the going rate of credentialed midwives working in competing larger practices. Those other practices have higher staff turnover, and less internal satisfaction which will always translate into unsatisfied clients and statistics. When I have a valuable teammate, I want to compensate her like a partner to retain her. While sometimes financially painful to me in the short run, I am being long term focused on growth as I have aspirations to double the practice from where it is, the moment she becomes credentialed.

I also enjoy her company!

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

There are many skilled midwives who have fledgling practices and complain in our community about struggle to grow. In addition to branding and marketing, I feel much of it is being skilled at connecting and communication.

In addition to keeping up ongoing required clinical training and education for credentials, I am always self reflecting on how to be better in my client relationships and communication. I cannot make everyone happy but I do a lot of work to connect well with my clients from the consultation to final postpartum visit.

Sometimes it is a numbers game – the last few years I’ve realized that I piss off about 1 out of every 30 clients and the rest are over the moon happy. Some of this is due to my imperfections and limitations as a human. It is a career riddled with boundary violations with middle of the night wakings, missed holidays and kids events. It can encompass clients experiencing personal trauma during their pregnancies such as domestic abuse or divorce or who present with anxiety and bonified mental health disorders or just their own limitations in close relationships.

Screening for fit, before they become clients has improved my client satisfaction and retention. When you are growing a business, it is tempting to take on everyone who wants you. I’ve learned it is much more valuable in the long run to make sure it’s a good client fit, even declaring my boundaries and communication limitations in the consultation process – rather than risking a bad client relationship which inevitably leads to a bad online review.

I keep reviews at the end of care in the back of my head when considering taking on a new client. If they present to me with anxiety or mental health issues or show red flags in communication, I will frequently not take them or refer to another practice if it does not resolve. Sometimes these issues do not reveal themselves until deep into care. I find myself resetting personal boundaries, taking personal responsibility and problem solving. if this does not solve an ongoing client issue, I will terminate the relationship rather than keeping them for the sake of income. It is scary to do that, but the phone always rings shortly after to fill the spot with a better fit client. It is important to focus on the long term in these situations and have faith that short term scarcity can often lead to longer term abundance and greater work satisfaction.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Segolilymidwife.com
• Instagram: @segolilymidwife
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/sego.lily.midwife/

Image Credits
Wild Oak Birth Madeline Beeton Birth Love Story Salt City Birth and Newborn