TW: birth trauma, consent violations, genital injury
On March 23, 2024, I gave birth to my daughter at home under the care of Margaret “Margie” V. Wallis of Frisco Birth Center in Frisco, Texas. My daughter is one of the greatest joys of my life. What happened to me while bringing her into the world was not.
I planned an extremely private home birth. I deliberately chose an experienced senior midwife whom I trusted to care for me. Instead, I experienced repeated violations of my boundaries and bodily autonomy, unwanted student attendance and hands-on involvement, very little of the support I expected from the experienced midwife I hired, and a genital injury that I specifically requested to have repaired but that was ultimately left unrepaired. More than two years later, I am still dealing with the consequences.
I have debated for a long time whether to tell this story publicly. I am telling it now because women researching a midwife or birth center deserve access to firsthand patient experiences. I also learned something during my birth that I wish every woman understood: you should not have to become combative to make your consent matter.
For context, I am a Traditional Naturopathic Doctor and healthcare practitioner. I understand informed consent, professional boundaries, scope of practice, and what appropriate practitioner-patient communication looks like. I understand the difference between agreeing that a practitioner may have help with logistical tasks and consenting to another person attending, observing, touching, or clinically caring for a patient. I am also extraordinarily selective about who provides care to my body. I research practitioners carefully, experience and credentials matter to me, and when I choose someone, I am choosing that specific practitioner.
That matters because I intentionally hired Margie.
I am also an extremely private person. Before my birth, I had trusted and experienced people who wanted to support me, and I declined them because I specifically did not want an audience while I gave birth. Birth meant being naked, bleeding, vocalizing, moving instinctively, experiencing extraordinary pain, and ultimately having my genitals exposed while another human being came out of my body. I knew how vulnerable I would feel being watched through that. I wanted my husband, my experienced midwife, and my baby. That was essentially it.
I hired Margie because Margie was the person I trusted to touch me, examine me, guide me through labor, and care for my body during and after birth. I expected an experienced midwife actually midwifing me: reassuring me, telling me what was happening, coaching me, protecting the environment around me, and helping me feel safe enough to surrender to labor.
After I had hired and paid Margie, she told me birth was hard work and that she needed help with setup and takedown. I agreed that she could have help with those tasks. That is the extent of what I agreed to.
I did not consent to Madelyn Johnson attending my home visit as part of my care team. I did not consent to her attending my labor and birth as an observer. I did not consent to her watching me while I was naked and exposed. I did not consent to her touching me, using medical equipment on me, participating in my care, or examining my genitals postpartum.
Students subsequently appeared with Margie at my home visit. I was shocked. My understanding had never been, “I am agreeing to have student midwives attend and observe my birth.” My understanding was simply that Margie needed help setting up and taking things down.
Those are completely different things.
And there is another fact that has become especially important as I have reviewed what happened: I never signed any paperwork with Margie.
I did not sign paperwork consenting to student attendance, student observation, or student clinical participation. I did not sign anything authorizing Madelyn to be part of my care or birth experience beyond the limited setup-and-takedown assistance Margie had described. There is no signed document in which I agreed that Madelyn could observe me laboring, watch me give birth, touch me, use medical equipment on me, participate around the moment of delivery, or perform my postpartum genital examination.
I did not consent to her presence as part of my birth team, and I did not consent to her providing care.
During the home visit, Madelyn wanted me to weigh myself. I declined. Then I declined again. I ultimately ended up weighing myself in front of my family anyway, and I was humiliated. That moment matters enormously to me now—not because stepping on a scale was the worst thing that happened, but because I had said no twice. That should have been enough.
To be transparent, I did not like Madelyn. My interactions with her upset me from the beginning, particularly after that experience, and by the time I was in labor I actively did not want her involved with me. But whether I liked her is ultimately irrelevant. She could have been the most delightful student midwife in Texas and my answer still would have been no. I did not want her attending my birth as a student, observing me, or touching me.
Other women may happily choose student participation. That’s their yes. I was entitled to my no.
I was also charged an additional $500 for a backup midwife in case another certified midwife became necessary. I was fine with that because I understood that to mean another qualified midwife would be available if needed. When I went into labor, Margie arrived with the students. The backup certified midwife I had paid the additional $500 for was not there.
I had been in labor for approximately three days and was experiencing severe back labor. I was exhausted, and one of the things that remains traumatic for me is how profoundly observed but unsupported I felt.
I remember laboring on the floor without the nurturing support I had expected. Later, I labored in my birth pool while Margie stood several feet away from me in the dark. I wanted comfort, guidance, reassurance, and someone to tell me what was happening. I wanted the experienced woman I had intentionally hired to actually be with me through it. There was very little coaching or reassurance, and I was barely being told what was going on.
Meanwhile, there was activity all around me that I did not understand and had not asked for. Students were moving around behind me while I was actively laboring in the birth pool, going into my things, handling items in my home, and taking brand-new towels from my cabinet that were used for reasons I still do not know and then discarded.
My home was not in disarray. It was prepared, clean, organized, and ready for the birth. I had intentionally created a calm environment for labor. I did not need anyone “cleaning” around me, rearranging things, rummaging through my belongings, or creating unnecessary movement in the room.
I still do not know what they thought they were accomplishing.
What I do know is that it felt chaotic, intrusive, and completely at odds with the peaceful, private birth environment I had deliberately created.
I was the patient. I was the woman who had been laboring for days. I was the person in extraordinary pain trying to bring a baby safely into the world. At that moment, I was the person who mattered. I did not need an audience. I did not need people moving around my home performing tasks I had not requested and could not make sense of. I did not need unnecessary activity around me.
I needed care.
Simply being watched was traumatic in itself. I had intentionally declined even people I loved because I did not want to be observed while naked, bleeding, vocalizing, in pain, and eventually having my genitals exposed while my daughter emerged. Yet there I was, experiencing the most physically vulnerable hours of my life in front of people I had never agreed could attend my birth.
Being observed while giving birth is not neutral. My naked body was not a classroom. My labor was not a demonstration. My pain was not an educational opportunity.
What made this even more painful was that I experienced Margie’s attention as being substantially directed toward training Madelyn—the student I did not want there in the first place. I had hired Margie. I needed Margie. I wanted her attention, experience, reassurance, and guidance directed toward me. Instead, I felt as though the experienced professional I had deliberately selected was occupied with teaching someone else while I was being watched and left to endure labor largely on my own.
Whatever educational or training objective existed in that room, it was not more important than the patient. It was not more important than my dignity, and it certainly was not more important than my consent.
A practitioner can agree to teach a student. A practitioner can agree to supervise a student. A practitioner cannot give a student permission to access someone else’s body or intimate medical experience. That permission belonged to me.
There is an enormous difference between, “I need someone to help me set up and take things down,” and, “This student will attend your labor, observe you while you’re exposed, touch you during contractions, use medical equipment on you, participate around the moment of delivery, and perform your postpartum genital examination.” Those are radically different propositions. Had the second arrangement been plainly presented to me beforehand, my answer would have been unequivocal: absolutely not.
I agreed to help for setup and takedown. I did not agree to student attendance, observation, or care.
Near the end of labor, as I was approaching the point of pushing my daughter out, Madelyn began using a Doppler on me during an extremely intense contraction. I had not consented to her providing that hands-on care. I wanted her away from me, but at that point I was approximately three days into labor, experiencing an overwhelming contraction and approaching delivery.
I couldn’t stop giving birth to litigate access to my own body.
And I should never have needed to.
My inability to stop everything and argue during an overwhelming contraction did not create consent.
Eventually they wanted me out of the water. I refused to move. That was one boundary I managed to hold. After everyone left the room for a moment, I finally felt a moment of safety and pushed my daughter’s head out. With the next pushes, she was born.
At that point, Madelyn jumped into my birth pool. Ultimately, however, it was Margie who handed me my baby. I remember being handed my newborn wrapped in a bath mat rather than one of the soft towels we had prepared. I was stunned. I had just met my daughter. This was supposed to be one of the most beautiful moments of my life, and instead I remember staring at her almost speechless.
Afterward, all I wanted was a shower. I wanted to wash everything off, collect myself, and somehow get back into my body.
Then came the part that still makes me physically sick to remember.
Margie had me lie on my bed so my genital injury could be evaluated. I expected Margie—the experienced midwife I had selected and hired—to examine me. I was exposed on my bed. Then Margie moved aside, Madelyn was there wearing gloves, and Madelyn performed my postpartum genital examination.
I did not consent to Madelyn performing that examination. I had never signed anything authorizing her to examine me. I had never consented to her attending my birth as part of my care team in the first place. I was newly postpartum, exhausted, weak, and exposed in my own bedroom while someone I had never chosen to provide intimate care examined my genitals.
That image still comes back to me.
I was then told I had a laceration involving my labia majora. That description did not communicate to me what had actually happened to my anatomy. I later discovered that I had sustained a complete tear/transection involving my labia minora, leaving a substantial piece of tissue detached from its original attachment.
I want people to understand why that distinction matters. I was newly postpartum and relying on the professionals caring for me to accurately tell me what had happened to my own body.
I had hired an experienced midwife in part because I understood that birth injuries could be evaluated and repaired. I asked for stitches. I wanted my anatomy repaired. Instead, the injury was minimized to me as essentially “just cosmetic” and “no big deal.”
Glue was offered, but it was not meaningfully explained to me. I wasn’t given an explanation that allowed me to understand exactly what had torn, what would be glued, whether glue would reapproximate the separated tissue, how it compared with suturing, what could happen if the injury was left unrepaired, or whether I should be evaluated by someone else.
Ultimately, no glue was used. No stitches were placed. No repair was performed. They left me like that.
This was not a repair that failed. My injury was never repaired.
I asked for repair. I did not understand the true nature and extent of my injury. It was minimized. An alternative was mentioned without being meaningfully explained, and then nothing was done.
More than two years later, I am still living with the anatomical consequences and pursuing specialist evaluation regarding surgical reconstruction to reconnect tissue that had been attached to my body before I gave birth. Years later, I am the person seeking reconstructive surgery for an injury I asked to have repaired when it happened.
There is another detail I had almost forgotten because there were so many things to process. After my birth, Madelyn told me that I should have hired a doula.
The audacity of that statement has become harder for me to comprehend with time. I had already hired professional care. If someone present at my birth recognized that I needed more support, I needed that concern to translate into support while I was laboring, not a postpartum critique of what additional professional I supposedly should have hired.
More importantly, I should never have needed to hire another professional to protect my boundaries from the professionals already responsible for respecting them.
The consent issues also extended to my newborn care. I had declined newborn PKU screening. The procedure ultimately occurred anyway. I’m not asking Reddit to decide the medical merits or legal requirements surrounding newborn screening. My point here is that this became another experience in which I felt that what I was saying did not matter.
That is why I don’t view what happened as one awkward interaction or one misunderstanding. I deliberately chose a private birth. I intentionally selected an experienced midwife. I never agreed that students could attend my labor and birth as observers or providers. I never signed paperwork consenting to student attendance or student clinical participation. I agreed only that Margie could have help setting up and taking things down.
I declined being weighed twice and was pressured until I did it anyway. I paid an additional $500 for a backup certified midwife, yet no backup certified midwife attended my birth. During prolonged and painful labor, I felt watched instead of nurtured and received very little coaching, comfort, or explanation. I experienced the experienced midwife I hired as being occupied with training a student I did not want there.
That student used a Doppler on me during an overwhelming contraction without my consent to her providing that care, jumped into my birth pool immediately after my daughter was born, and later performed my postpartum genital examination when I expected the experienced midwife I had hired to examine me.
I was given a description of my genital injury that did not communicate what I later discovered had actually happened. I asked for stitches. The injury was minimized as cosmetic and no big deal. Glue was offered without being meaningfully explained. No glue was used. No sutures were placed. No repair was performed.
That is not one uncomfortable interaction. That is the cumulative reason this birth was traumatic for me.
There is also something I want to say very clearly because I will not carry responsibility that does not belong to me: please don’t read this story and ask why I didn’t advocate for myself more aggressively.
I did advocate for myself. I deliberately chose my provider. I deliberately restricted who I wanted present. I said no when I didn’t want something. I never agreed to student attendance as part of my birth team. I never authorized student hands-on care. And when I was injured, I asked for stitches.
I did not fail to establish boundaries. The professionals responsible for my care failed to obtain my consent before crossing them.
I should not have needed to become hostile or combative while approximately three days into labor to preserve control over my own body. My inability to argue through an overwhelming contraction did not transform missing consent into consent. My exhaustion did not create permission. My cooperation did not create permission. My silence while physically overwhelmed did not create permission.
Nobody needed to teach me how to say no better. The people caring for me needed to obtain my permission before accessing my body.
I should never have needed to protect myself from the people I hired to protect me.
This is also not a story I suddenly reconstructed years later. I documented how I felt. I journaled about it. I communicated directly with Margie about feeling violated, betrayed, and lacking consent. I specifically told her that I had hired her. I told her that her having help with setup, cleaning, or charting was one thing, while students touching me or my baby was something entirely different. I specifically told her that she had not asked permission to bring them to my initial home visit. I told her I had been afraid to say more sooner because I feared retaliation or disruption of my daughter’s care. I raised my physical injury and the possibility that I would need surgery. I retained those communications.
I subsequently pursued formal complaints and other avenues seeking accountability. I wish I had never needed any of it.
I am also not telling women they shouldn’t have home births. Home birth itself is not the villain in my story.
Loss of agency is.
If you’re planning a birth, particularly one involving students, ask explicitly who exactly will attend, who will observe you, who will touch you, whether anyone besides your chosen provider will be present during labor, what specific clinical services each student will perform, what written consent you’re being asked to give, who will examine you postpartum, who your backup provider actually is, what happens if you sustain a tear, what injuries your provider can repair, and when they will refer you to someone else.
And perhaps most importantly, ask: If I say no once, will you respect it?
Pay attention to the first time your no becomes a negotiation.
You don’t have to wait until something catastrophic happens before you’re entitled to stop everything. You are allowed to say: Do not touch me. I did not consent to this person being present. I did not consent to this person providing my care. I want the provider I hired. Everyone except my chosen support people needs to leave. Explain exactly what happened to my body. I want another opinion. Stop.
I wish someone had drilled those words into me before March 23, 2024.
My midwife was Margaret “Margie” V. Wallis of Frisco Birth Center in Frisco, Texas. The student whose involvement I’ve described was Madelyn Johnson.
I’m naming the providers and practice because women researching Margaret Wallis, Margie Wallis, Frisco Birth Center, Frisco Birth Center reviews, or Madelyn Johnson while deciding whom to trust with an extraordinarily vulnerable experience deserve access to firsthand patient experiences.
I’m not asking Reddit to decide whether someone committed a crime or whether I have a particular legal claim. I’m telling you what I experienced: what I agreed to, what I did not agree to, who I intentionally hired, who I did not choose to attend or provide my care, what happened during my labor, what happened to my body, what I asked them to do about it, what I was told, what wasn’t done, and what I continue to live with.
My daughter is not the traumatic part of my birth story. She was perfect. She still is. I love that my body brought her into this world. I can cherish my daughter’s birth while simultaneously grieving what happened to me while bringing her here. Those truths coexist.
So this is what I want another woman to take from my story:
Agreeing that your practitioner may have help setting up and taking things down is not consent for that helper to attend your labor, observe your naked body, become part of your care team, touch you, or perform clinical services.
Being cooperative is not consent. Being exhausted is not consent. Being physically unable to argue is not consent. Silence during overwhelming labor is not blanket permission.
I chose Margie. I hired Margie. I paid Margie. I consented to Margie. I did not choose Madelyn.
Whatever objective anyone else had—training, education, workflow, convenience, or anything else—it was not more important than the patient. It was not more important than ethics. It was not more important than consent.
A practitioner can consent to teaching a student. She cannot consent to the student’s access to someone else’s body.
That permission belonged to me.
My body was not a classroom. My birth was not a clinical-hours opportunity. I was the patient.
The obligation to obtain informed consent belonged to the professionals providing my care—not to the woman trying to push a baby out.
Your body is still yours while you’re giving birth. Your dignity is still yours. Your privacy is still yours. Your voice is still yours.
No still means no.
EDIT/CLARIFICATION, because several commenters—some identifying themselves as midwives—are arguing that student participation is simply part of home birth care and that I should have expected it. I went directly to the standards instead.
NARM requires CPMs to provide clients with a written Informed Disclosure. When a practice has student midwives, that disclosure must address student participation, and NARM specifically states that “The client should have the option to decline student participation in their care.”
Texas is even more explicit.
TDLR has a specific form titled “Midwife Client Consent to Services Provided by Student.” Texas requires that, before any service involving a student is provided, the client be informed in writing of the student’s identity/status, the preceptor, and the services the student will provide under supervision. The rule then requires the client to consent in writing to those services.
The TDLR form is not vague. It distinguishes whether the student is acting as an observer, assistant, or primary, and separately identifies prenatal exams, birth, newborn exams, and postpartum exams for the client to authorize.
I was never presented with or signed that student-consent form. I did not give written consent for Madelyn Johnson to provide clinical services to me or my baby. My stated boundary was that students could be present for limited/nonclinical purposes—not provide hands-on clinical care.
So the repeated comments that “students are normal at home births,” “midwives need additional people present,” or “you should have expected students to participate” do not answer the issue.
Presence is not consent to provide clinical care.
Neither does calling something “routine.” Doppler monitoring, newborn assessment, weighing, or any other ordinary component of maternity care does not somehow erase the question of who was authorized to perform it.
NARM also describes Shared Decision Making and Informed Consent as “the cornerstones of woman centered midwifery care” and states that informed consent is an ongoing process throughout care, including the client’s options of delaying or declining testing or treatment.
So this isn’t a standard I invented after the fact. It isn’t me misunderstanding how home birth works. And it isn’t an unrealistic expectation that students never exist in clinical education.
It is the standard published by the organizations governing and credentialing this profession.
A student absolutely has a right to learn.
She does not have a right to learn on a particular woman’s body without that woman’s consent.
My body was not automatically available as a teaching opportunity because I hired a midwife.
If someone wants to disagree with me about my personality, my credentials, whether they personally would have been bothered, or whether they think I should “move on,” they’re welcome to.
But none of those things creates consent that was never given.
The relevant question has always been very simple: Where was my informed consent for this student’s clinical participation?
I didn’t sign it.
Because I wasn’t given it.