My family used Kelli Johnson as our midwife for our last pregnancy and home/waterbirth. My husband was originally a bit stand-offish on the idea of a homebirth until our initial consultation with Kelli. She was a paramedic for over 10 years and is still sometimes called in to help out when crisis situations arise and staff is short-handed. She has attended over 400 women during their birthing experience. 13 of these women I know personally, including myself and 2 of the births I have attended. I learned of her through a local mommy group where at least 12 women I know have delivered with her at home (some more than once).
We started seeing Kelli about 10 weeks into the pregnancy. She was very supportive, informative and genuine. I loved my prenatal visits and looked forward to each one of them! I never had to wait more than 5 minutes past my appointment time (which was really important to me because I have a toddler and a life outside of prenatal visits). At each visit my family was greeted with hugs and smiles. Kelli knew my husband’s name, my daughter’s name and was so personable. Each visit was scheduled for an hour (take it or leave it) and I never felt rushed in or out of there. Her office in her home is very comfortable and clean. All exams were done on an actual bed in a private area of her home designated specifically for her clients. Kelli was very professional and speaking with her was like talking to my best friend. We created quite a bond with each other and I will continue to see her outside of her practice as she is like a member of our family now. She was very empowering and supportive during my pregnancy and there were a few times I cried on her shoulder. There were many times we just sat and laughed and talked about all kind of things. I really enjoyed the way that she put things into perspective for me, guided me emotionally and helped to strengthen and educate me as a mother and woman.
Our homebirth experience was wonderful. Kelli came over as soon as she was called (at 4am) and she was wonderful as always. I really liked that she returned to my home after 3 days to follow up so that I didn’t have to rush out to the pediatrician’s office 24hours after having a baby. She also did the PKU in my bedroom that day.
Kelli is also a Master Herbalist and very much into homeopathy and natural remedies. She makes tinctures and sells any and everything one may need during and/or after pregnancy. She is like the doctor, the mother, and the pharmacy all in one. I highly recommend her to anyone interested in a non-medicated, natural homebirth.
You can contact Kelli Johnson @ 407-699-4207 or visit her website for more information.
Jan Zeiger
Heidi Crawford
Wendy
Jenny Wadley
Michelle ~ Reflection Of Light
Kristy ~ Wee Willie Winks
Gretchen Goel
Jill - Juice Plus
Elizabeth Ashe
Cat
Tara - Get Green Organics
Heather ~ Orlando Organics
Lisa Holt, RN, MS
Melissa Holmes
Kimberly ~ greenWell
organiccrusader
Thanks for posting this detailed review!!!
So glad you had an awesome experience! By the way, I added a link to her website. I hope you don’t mind!
Kelli has attended my last 2 births (HBAC’s). I wouldn’t want it any other way. I echo everything said above. She is amazing. I trust her with my life and my children’s lives. I was never “comfortable” with my OB’s. They didn’t even know me. They just glanced at my chart. Kelli not only knows me, but my husband, children and even my parents now. She and I are kindred spirits. She keeps up on continuing education far more than any other birth professional I have seen. She is re-educating herself everyday.
As well as being extremely professional and at the same time extremely personal…..she also gives the GREATEST hugs in the world.
Kelli was my MW with my daughter in August of 2006 and we couldn’t have been happier. She is an amazing friend, midwife, woman. She was so intuitive and she truly knows how to take care of a mom and her baby.
Raeghan’s shoulders were stuck and because Kelli acted so quickly and knew what was going on we had no complications and a safe birth and healthy baby.
I now live in AL, where they do not license HB MW’s and may very well be driving to FL to have my next baby with Kelli.
Kelli Johnson should lose her license. She is very uniformed about simple things like genetics and basic biology, giving much misiformation to here clients. She attended two of my births and she may know how to deliver a baby, but a womans body is what does the work. I would NEVER recommend her to anyone as she has a mean streak and has no probably being a __ when she wants to be, even sending nasty letters to her clients telling them to find a hopital and OB for she has decided she is not going to do the birth. Take your chances but I suggest one finds someone who doesn’t pretend to be all loving and supportive only to screw you in the end
(edited due to profanity)
Wow, I am speechless. Except to say that this woman is off of her rocker!
“She is very uninformed about simple things like genetics and basic biology, giving much misiformation to here clients.” In my experience with Kelli this the furthest from the truth.
“She attended two of my births and she may know how to deliver a baby, but a womans body is what does the work.” I don’t think anyone would disagree with this, especially Kelli!!
“I would NEVER recommend her to anyone as she has a mean streak and has no probably being a __ when she wants to be, even sending nasty letters to her clients telling them to find a hopital and OB for she has decided she is not going to do the birth.” Last I knew EVERY health care provider reserves the right to refuse clients. And I am sure if she attended two of this woman’s births and then denied her service, she had a good reason.
“Take your chances but I suggest one finds someone who doesn’t pretend to be all loving and supportive only to screw you in the end” I am wondering how Kelli supposedly “screwed” this woman. She never really says. Sounds to me like the poster was more interested in name calling and flaming than posting any actual information here. Sounds like maybe she is still upset over something, like Kelli refusing her service? But if Kelli is so horrible than why would she be bothered by that? Sounds fishy. I know what I know and this woman’s accusations are the furthest from the truth.
I am simply trying to get an accurate e-mail address for Kelli. I am unable to phone her at the moment. The address posted on her website is inactive. Can anyone help?
hintzbrandy@aol.com
I called her and she had her page updated to provide the correct addy…midwife1@earthlink.net (I believe). Check her site to be sure
Kelli was the midwife who attended my first birth which was an attempted homebirth in 2002. I’ll start off by saying she knows a lot about herbology and native american spirituality. I purchased products from her following my birth experience with her (which was NOT positive) because they are good quality. Kelli does offer a valuable service to the community by offering VBACs at home, which many healthcare practicioners refuse. She is really into natural health and fairly open minded about whichever parenting techniques you decide upon. She did come to my home for the postpartum check-up a few days following the birth which was nice.
My experience with Kelli while I was in labor was not so nice. I’m not posting this to argue with those of you who had good experiences with her, I am only presenting the flip side. Kelli has a distinct personality which some will love, some not so much. I can only hope that she learned from her experience with me to LISTEN to her laboring clients and to trust their innate wisdom.
The evening of the day I went into labor, another client of Kelli’s went into labor with her third child. Anticipating a quick birth, she attended the other woman, who ended up having a longer labor due to a complication. At this point I’m going to backtrack a bit and say I was discouraged from taking birthing classes or hiring a doula. When I originally enlisted Kelli as my midwife I told her I planned to take birthing classes. She told me this was not necessary as she taught a birthing class which I could take. In my last month of pregnancy when I again asked about it was told someone would be with me when I was in labor and that the class wasn’t really necessary. Mind you, this was my first pregnancy and birth experience, I didn’t really know any better. In hindsight I see my own folly in not doing more research and better educating myself. At the time Kelli had a partner and the idea was if two people went into labor at the same time they would split up. In my case, this didn’t happen. I was up all night with contractions unable to sleep, in the water, out of the water, just me and my husband, alone. We did really well and got into a rhythm with it. We took a stroll about 3AM as I thought this was something we should do to move things along. I wasn’t freaking out, I just relaxed into the contractions and tried to let nature take it’s course. 7AM the next morning a grumpy Kelli who’d been up all night showed up at my door to check on me. Though we’d faithfully timed my contractions all night and they had remained a steady 5 minutes apart, when Kelli showed up they instantly slipped back to 10 - 15 minutes apart (this happened with my second child also, I apparently have shy birthing energy). She was openly annoyed by this. We were fairly adamant that they’d been closer all night and so she said she wanted to check my cervix. So she put on her gloves and reached inside and said I was still only one centimeter. She said she was going to try to stretch the opening and started. “OUCH! Could you please not do that?” I whimpered. “IF YOU”RE ACTING LIKE THIS AT ONE CENTIMETER, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO BE LIKE AT NINE” was her reply! She also chastised me for walking at 3AM and said I should have been sleeping so I’d have energy (this hadn’t been possible but I kept my mouth shut feeling like I was some sort of overreactive baby and obviously not managing my pain as strongly as I should). She insisted I was NOT in labor and left to go home to bed. I swallowed this misinformation, pulled myself up by the bootstraps and thought, well, she knows more than me about what is going on and refocused on opening and allowing the birth process to run it’s course. By 4PM that same day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d been on the phone with my mother all afternoon as I had none of the assistance I so desperately needed. My mother was concerned with the intensity of my contractions and told me if the midwife wouldn’t come I should just go to the hospital. I was getting REALLY angry by now. I felt abandoned, ignorant and confused. My husband (who never liked Kelli from the get go) called her and told her to come over or we were going to the hospital. She came all smiles and still INSISTED I wasn’t in active labor yet. By now, I KNEW I was. She again chastised me for not eating (I’d been unable to hold anything down) and went off to the kitchen to make me a shake. I felt a sick sort of satisfaction in that moment knowing I was going to puke it all right back up. She brought me the shake, I drank a bit, and a few moments later it all came back. A bit surprised she decided again to check my cervix. Still one centimeter. It was with a sickening amount of amusement that I watched the expression on her face change from someone who knew it all to “Oh s#!t!” She called her partner and arranged for me to transfer to the hospital. The doctor and one nurse at the hospital recognized my cervix was covered in scar tissue from a freezing procedure I’d had done following an abnormal pap as a teenager. (Yes, I’d put this in my orginal patient profile for Kelli). The doctor gave me several options and eventually with an epidural he was able to tear open the scar tissue and stretch the cervix a bit. Thank goodnes Kelli’s partner was in good standing & respected by the hospital staff and I received exceptional care even as a homebirth transfer. My husband even helped deliver my daughter!
It was difficult for me to recover from my birth experience as I’d had my heart set on homebirthing and I’d felt absolutely abondoned during labor. I realize it was a complication she’d not seen before, however, it would have been very empowering to me if Kelli had been able to set her ego aside long enough to admit to her shortcomings and apologize for her ill behavior. This never did occur but I was eventually able to put it past me. Though it was my first birth, I don’t think ANYONE deserves that sort of energy when they are in the birthing process, be it false labor, prelabor or active labor. Childbirth is one of the most vulnerable and yet possibly empowering moments in a women’s life and that sacred space should always be respected no matter how tired a caregiver is, or how much one thinks one knows.
Peace
Thanks for sharing your story.
I wanted to write this a long time ago b/c I had a great birth w/ Kelli! (I have a 1 & 2 y.o., so never can find the right time to write the glowing review that I want!) If we have another baby, I definitely plan on having another home birth w/ her!
Being born at home, I grew up knowing I would have a natural childbirth. The whole homebirth experience with my midwife Kelli Johnson was everything I had dreamed and more!
Kelli is a strong and caring woman and a phenomenal midwife. I admire her as the supporter of women that she is. (She hosts a monthly gathering in her home for women to support each other. She even has a young single mother she “adopted” and an older woman I’ve seen living there as well.) She delivered my second baby girl, in my garden jacuzzi tub… What a peaceful, loving atmosphere! I felt woman power like I’ve never felt before!
I bonded w/ Kelli immediately as she’s very intuitive. She got to know and care for me as a person, not just a client. She’s very holistic and treats the whole person, not just your body parts. As a midwife, she listened to all my concerns. I had a bad experience with my first delivery and felt deceived that my baby was in trouble (when she really wasn’t) and transferred from a birthing center to the hospital (even w/ a hypnotherapy doula!), so I had major trust issues when it came to midwives. Kelli understood this. I cried on her shoulder a few times. I had even waited until a few months b/f delivery to choose a midwife. She helped me resolve the stressful issues I was dealing w/ at the time: nursing a baby while pregnant, seeing clients w/ a baby in the sling, money issues, selling our home, etc.
I totally attracted the perfect midwife for me! I knew she would stand up for me against any obstinate doctors and nurses we might encounter at a hospital, if push came to shove and we had to transfer. Kelli has had her fair share of bullying by other doctors and even midwives who write the laws; they criticize and ostracize her for risking her license and supporting women’s choice for VBACs, (which I believe is important, no matter what legislators say. If I were Kelli, I would feel angry for being misjudged and mistreated, too!) I knew that Kelli could draw from her experience of being the mistreated underdog to “go to bat” for me if necessary. Thankfully, it wasn’t necessary, and she was able to be exactly the support person I needed her to be: ready to support, but invisible.
(My mother-in-law thought Kelli talked a lot during the delivery, which is funny that she thought that, but I couldn’t tell if she did b/c of my loud Jacuzzi tub. It wasn’t a problem for me!) My traditional MIL also wanted me to go w/ a more coventional setting/birth center/midwife, and choose the young midwife I interviewed in Altamonte Springs, who seemed nice, hardly looked me in the eye when I asked her the tough questions and didn’t give me the answers I wanted about transferring w/out signs of distress when water‘s broken. Kelly will look you straight in the eyes and be frank w/ you. I respected that! My MIL’s discomfort made me realize all the more why I wanted to choose Kelli; she‘s unique. She lives and embodies the “medicine woman, healer, and natural woman,” which are qualities I would want in a midwife as well as having had the experience of working as an EMT. She had all the bases covered.
Kelli was there for me to lock eyes w/ to gain strength through transition and feeling the urge to push. I had done a lot of research and this was my 2nd baby, but I’d lost my confidence in my body’s ability to give birth naturally.
I didn’t realize I was in labor since I labored for several hours w/ my 15-m.o. in my tub which kept my contractions less intense and irregular. As soon as I got out, my contractions were consistently 5 mins. apart, so I called Kelli and she insisted on coming since she was an hour away, it was rush hour, and it was my second baby. I was happy to learn that I was 9 cm when she arrived! She made me a sandwich and gave me the space I needed as I labored. Her assistant couldn’t attend, so she had gingerly asked that morning if she could bring an interning birth massage therapist as her ass’t. (I was hesitant of an unknown person, but what a great surprise! The massaging really helped!)
I gained strength from locking eyes w/ Kelli. She gently reminded me to reach down and feel my baby’s head, and reassured me when I felt the water break. I waited until I felt the urge to push and was still holding back until she reminded me to “go w/ it” as it might be too forceful and I might otherwise tear if I resisted. (I had torn during my 1st delivery w/ unwanted Pitocin, and was determined to avoid that again!) She reminded me of the beautiful birth I’d envisioned, telling me I could catch my baby…things that I’d forgotten while high on birthing endorphins! My husband, who fearfully and reluctantly went along w/ my idea of a homebirth, was impressed at how professional, knowledgeable, and efficient she was, and how she even cleaned up the bathroom before she left at midnight! I knew immediately after my daughter was born in a such beautiful homebirth, that I wouldn’t experience post-partum depression this time around! I was right!
We plan to have another homebirth w/ Kelli if we choose to try for a boy!
I had a very successful HBAC with Kelli on 5/7/08 and I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect birth.
We used Kelli Johnson to deliver our baby and as a result our now 4 year old son cannot walk. crawl, sit or even talk.
Regrettably Ms Johnson’s midwifery abilities do not match her skills at self-aggrandizing. It was a catalog of errors from the start. Her Assistant got lost and had no cell phone so Kelli Johnson sent my husband out to try and track the Assistant down - this took over an hour. I pushed for 5 hours and of course in hindsight we realize that this was absolutely ridiculous but at the time Kelli kept insisting the birth was imminent. She assured us that everything was progressing perfectly normally and was adamant that we should not go to hospital. Eventually I delivered a limp, blue, silent baby with the cord wrapped twice round his neck. After unraveling the cord Kelli handed him to me and it took my husband and I immediately screaming in unison at her to prompt her into action. Initially, although she took him back, she simply did not grasp the severity of the situation and it was over one minute (a long, long time when your child is in front of you not breathing) until she began CPR. Then she was completely out of her depth in her attempts to resuscitate our son (even more surprising because of her much boasted paramedic background) and her woefully inadequate equipment (an oxygen tank with tubing attached but no mask) was useless. Luckily the Paramedics got there quickly and within seconds of their arrival they revived our baby (noting in their written report how ill equipped Kelli Johnson was.) Unfortunately the crucial ten minutes when Kelli Johnson was unable to revive him has left our son with catastrophic disabilities.
A few months later 6 forms from Kelli Johnson which I had never seen before, all with very poor imitations of my signature, apparently refusing all sorts of tests were sent directly from Kelli Johnson to our Attorneys office. Also the records Kelli Johnson sent to our Attorneys chronicling my pregnancy and the birth were completely inaccurate (I’m phrasing this kindly however there is another word to describe what she deliberately did to her records) ……… so having caused such appalling injury to our son Kelli Johnson then elected to do everything she could to try and worm her way out of trouble. Evidently Ms Johnson considers saving her own neck is paramount. Every day as we watch our son struggle to function we wonder how Kelli Johnson can bear to look at herself in the mirror but, based on her past behavior, she probably doesn’t give our son a second thought except to bitterly curse him for increasing the cost of her insurance.
In reply to Alison;
My mother is a midwife & when I read your review of Kelly Johnson, I was simply appalled at her lack of action at your birth. I know when my mom use to do homebirth, she always carried necessary equipment (including an ambu bag for neo-natal resuscitation ) as well as being trained at neo-natal advanced life support. I simply cannot imagine your pain & I hope you don’t see all midwives in this light. Your son & family is in my prayers.
Sincerely,
Victoria
Karen Kennedy Tyus is a home birth midwife in the area. Her number is 386-748-1542 Email is gratefulmidwife@aol.com