Kimberly Severn, CNM, MSN

I get extreme anxiety when I’m looking for a doctor. I always assume this one might be a genius and that one might be a quack. Their having to get through college and medical school doesn’t impress me; we all went to school with an idiot or two.

One of the reasons it’s so scary is that you rely on a doctor to tell you about things you don’t normally know much about. If a doctor tells you that you need surgery on your hand, you probably want to get a second opinion, but you also want to be reasonably comfortable that this doctor—and the next one—is giving you sound and informed advice.

Kimberly Severn turned out to be the doctor I’m always afraid I’ll pick. Actually, she’s not a doctor at all, but a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM), which is what I was looking for. Midwives are known to see pregnancies and births as natural states and processes as opposed to medical conditions and procedures, and they are generally assumed to be more edifying and patient than medical doctors, willing to take more time and explain more than your typical Ob-Gyn. Of course, on some level you have to assume that there are as many terse midwives as there are saintly Ob-Gyns. And until you have more than one baby and use more than one medical provider, you have only generalizations to go on. But you do have to start somewhere. So I started with Kimberly Severn, who was a) covered by my insurance and b) listed in “DC Baby.”

Now I know that there are probably hundreds of women who have worked with Kim Severn and loved her. In all honesty, I was fairly happy to have found her. But there were signs even from the beginning that she wasn’t for me. First of all, she was medically aggressive. On my first visit, she gave me a transvaginal ultrasound and took my blood and sent me off with a prescription for some hormone in case it wasn’t high enough when she looked at my blood-work. Second, she seemed more interested in telling me about her own experiences than in finding out about me. And third, she was extremely negative, preparing me at that first visit for the possibility that my pregnancy might not be viable.

At this point I should mention Ms. Severn turned out to be right. She declared the following week that my pregnancy wasn’t viable. Kudos to her, I suppose, for her good instincts, but it felt more like belief than knowledge; dates can be wrong, and pregnancies can develop differently. But there was another problem: One thing I expected from a midwife was for her to remember that while this may be her 1,234th patient, it’s my very first pregnancy. And when she told me she could schedule a D&C for that afternoon, I felt more like a medical condition than a woman trying to have a baby.

So I went to another doctor. She wasn’t particularly warm or compassionate, but she did tell me that it was too soon to be certain that the pregnancy wasn’t viable. I didn’t by any means enjoy dragging things out, but I was a lot more comfortable getting a D&C once I knew without a doubt that the pregnancy was a dud, and once I had some time to think over whether I wanted to have the procedure or let my body take care of things itself. I can see how Ms. Severn, in trying to “get it over with,” was acting in my best interest, but her methods didn’t take my inexperience or my emotional grief into account.

Three weeks and as many ultrasounds later, M- and I went through with the D&C. We were 100% sure we wanted to, and we were as ready as we could be. We talked about it with doctors and each other and we understood what was going on. And I’m extraordinarily relieved that we escaped the doubt that may have haunted us had we done it sooner.

Comments

[anon.]

Thank you for posting your experiences. I had a recent experience with Kimberly Severn (very aggressive medical approach) and I thought I should Google her, just in case. I'm glad I did.

[Christina]

First off I want to say how sorry I am for the experience you had with Kim Severn. Pregnancy is never easy and the anxiety felt with your first is like nothing else.
That said, I want to put my two cents in about Kim. I have had three children with her help and she has served me well through the years with other medical concerns. She has shown both intelligence and compassion and works very well with the drs. in the practice. My pregnancies were not easy nor run of the mill, but Kim always took the time to listen and was "aggressive" when caring for both my health and the health of my babies.
I know these experiences are all unique and pray that you find a Doctor/or Midwife who is a perfect fit. Me, I'm still searching for the perfect Family Doctor after 12 years in the DC area....any suggestions.
Best-CM

[MRP]

It's unfortunate that you had a bad experince with Kim. I've had great experiences with the birth of both of my children and Kim was the midwife. I found that she is warm and not agressive at all. I had a miscarriage as well and she was extremly compassionate but and honest. I've been going to the practice for 5 years and she's the only person that I see. I wish you good luck in finding the perfect midwife/doctor.

[Karen]

I had my baby with Kim as my midwife in November 2008.

I was pretty happy with her pre-birth and expected a low-intervention birth. However, it did not turn out that way.

The biggest problem, in my opinion, was that she just wasn't there! Her pager number that she gave me did not work. I ended up at Sibley with an OB I had met once. Then when we did get in touch, Kim didn't show up until 24 hours into the labor, over 12 hours after we had arrived at the hospital the final time.

Maybe if I'd been able to talk to her, if she'd been there with me, maybe she would have encouraged me to wait instead of breaking the waters, like the OB recommended. She said it was a good idea, but it just wedged my baby's head in a bad position and increased my pain until I gave up and got the epi and pit and, you know the rest... a c-section for "deep transverse arrest".

Anyway, I just sort of expected her to be more... midwifey. As far as I can tell, she's just an OB-lite. To say I was disappointed would be a huge understatement. I had a c-section! With the dismal vbac rates, I feel like now I'm forced to go completely rogue and sort of plan to "oops" have my baby at home... or submit to never having the birth I wanted.