The sweetest baby boy named Henry was born Wednesday 1/28/26 at 11:16AM and became Bellingham Birth Center’s 2,000th baby. He is Jalene and Justin’s first baby and he weighed in at 9#14oz, and is 23” long! This is a big milestone for us all – most especially Henry – and we are taking this moment to reflect on how far we’ve come.
When we opened in 2004, there were no birth centers north of Everett, and our community was more than ready for one. We were so energized to get started and make real what we had all dreamed about for years. However, the extensive renovation of our building felt like the world’s longest labor. Before we could even begin, we had to obtain a Conditional Use Permit from the City of Bellingham to operate a medical business in our mixed-use neighborhood, coordinate requirements between our local planning department and the Washington State Department of Health Facilities Licensing department, hire an architect and figure out what should go where within the walls of the building.
We were working on a shoestring budget that relied on friends, family, and a couple of 0% credit cards, so anything we could do ourselves, we did ourselves. That meant A LOT of demo. We took down walls, widened doorways, and re-imagined what had once been a home into welcoming birth suites and clinic space.
One morning, we tackled the cast-iron bathtub in the main bathroom. It was incredibly heavy and wouldn’t fit through any doorway, so we took a massive hammer to it and broke it into pieces. We celebrated our hard work with dinner paid for by the $25 we earned recycling the metal. (The tub had to be removed to accommodate the five-foot open circle required by the ADA.)
We turned the shower into a mop closet (a Department of Health requirement), converted the kitchen into a laundry room, refinished the original oak floors, and repainted everything in warm, inviting colors. We begged, borrowed, and scrounged for beds, tables, lamps, and couches—making do with what we had and replacing items over time as we became able.
We secured some insurance contracts right away, but others took years. For those early births, we chose not to charge a facility fee, trusting that word of mouth was more valuable. We were right. The calls kept coming, and soon we were busy – so busy that in 2008 we added a third birth suite after realizing we had 24 due dates in July of that year alone! That suite still features its original, unpainted wood trim and crown molding, the walls a soft green, with windows overlooking the laurel bushes along Alabama Street.
For the past 22 years, we have done what licensed midwives do best: cared deeply for our clients, carefully screened to ensure we work only with low-risk pregnancies, and supported the innate wisdom of the physiology of birth.
Much of what we do is quite simple. We take time to truly know our clients during prenatal care, so when labor begins, we are far from strangers. Together, over the months, we have built trust. In labor, we encourage movement and position changes, allow people to eat and drink as they wish, and provide tools like birth slings, birth stools, birth balls, and immersion in warm water. Clients choose who joins them in labor. We also offer nitrous oxide, TENS units, and other comfort measures for especially intense moments.
Together, these elements help people move through labor with greater resilience while being able to touch its raw, unfiltered beauty. At the peak of labor, we often see clients dozing between contractions, sometimes even snoring a little, lights dimmed, a warm, quiet calm settling upon us all between the moments of intensity. At other times, birth becomes wild and untamed, revealing a more animal, instinctive strength as clients thrash about and do whatever they must do in order to get through. And then, the storm passes in an instant, and we see them crack open and weep as they realize their babies are in their arms, at long last.
There is a profound unity in the experience of birth within the wide demographic we serve. Like a prism that concentrates light into a single beam, life is at its purest when a baby is born. Everything else falls away in those moments as the new human emerges, victorious in its struggle to be born. We have always met this moment with reverence, fiercely protecting this way that birth can be: held with dignity, respect and a deep appreciation for each family’s journey.
When people feel supported and safe, when they can sink into warm water with trusted caregivers nearby, birth works better. Quite literally. Over the last 22 years, our cesarean rate has consistently been 3–4%, compared to 15–24% nationally for a similar low-risk cohort (single baby, head down, at term, without conditions such as hypertension or diabetes).
Today, we are going strong with six separate practices and a beautiful, supportive community of licensed midwives, students, and doulas united by a shared understanding of birth.
Thank you to every family who has trusted us. We are honored beyond words.
