Lynne: from 5 weeks pregnant to 6 weeks postpartum, why she chose both The Motherhood Practice and the NHS

Lynne came to us at five weeks pregnant, carrying the weight of a miscarriage the year before. She stayed with us until her daughter was six weeks old. Earlier this month, we sat down with her to reflect on those ten months and the care she received. What follows is her story.

The morning after her positive pregnancy test, Lynne was sitting at the breakfast table, crying over her cereal, reading the newspaper, when she came across a news story about a private midwifery service, then called Kove Care, now The Motherhood Practice. It described a service that worked alongside the NHS: a named midwife, accessible via WhatsApp, available for home consultations.

"It just seemed that it had found me at the right moment," she says, "when I really needed it."

She booked a conversation with Clarissa that same day.

The additional layer that was needed

Lynne is a co-founder of her own business. She is used to making considered decisions, doing her research, knowing what she's getting into. But pregnancy after loss is a different kind of territory, one where information alone doesn't quiet the fear.

What changed in that first conversation wasn't the facts. It was something harder to name. "What really spoke to me was the fact that she brought so much experience and so much knowledge. She brought so much reassurance that actually things were going to be good and she could help me really with my state of mind. And most of all, she gave me hope for the pregnancy and what it could be." From that point, Clarissa was with Lynne and her husband through every stage.

It's worth being clear about what that looked like in practice: Lynne attended all her NHS appointments throughout. Every scan, every routine midwife check. Clarissa was not a replacement for that care. She was what came alongside it, the layer of continuous, personal support that the system, through no fault of its own, cannot always provide.

The moments when having a private midwife mattered most

Ask Lynne to name a specific moment when she was glad she had Clarissa, she fires back, laughing: "there are too many!". She settles on two.

The first: around ten weeks into her pregnancy, the same stage at which she'd miscarried the year before, she and her business partner were due to travel to the US. Lynne didn't know whether to go. She didn't know how to prepare, what to take, what to do if something went wrong thousands of miles from home.

"Clarissa walked me through the logistics of it, what I could do on the flight just to keep myself well, keep me and the baby safe. She talked me through the information to take with me so that I'd have access to it in the US, such as my own personal health notes, but also the local health centres where I could go if there was a problem. She really gave me the information and the reassurance that I needed to allow me to keep working, keep doing what I was doing."

She went on the trip. Everything was fine.

The second moment is quieter, but in some ways more telling. During a routine NHS appointment, Lynne had blood tests taken. The results came back through her NHS app marked as one word: abnormal.

"I was so worried. I was able to speak to Clarissa about those results. She explained that for someone who wasn't pregnant those results would be abnormal, but because I was pregnant they were actually normal. In fact they were quite good, but I wouldn't have known that. I didn't have the clinical expertise to understand that. I just saw the word 'abnormal' and went into panic mode."

This is the gap that continuity of care fills, not the dramatic moments, but the ordinary ones. The results that arrive on a Friday evening. The question that surfaces at 11pm. The anxiety that a 10-minute appointment doesn't have time to address. "Having previously experienced a miscarriage, this pregnancy naturally felt daunting and filled with worry. Clarissa held our hand throughout, helping us find moments of calm when we needed them most."

Preparing for the birth she was most afraid of

Lynne elected to have a caesarean section. It was the part of the whole process she was most nervous about, a longstanding fear of childbirth that she'd carried for years.

What she needed wasn't to be told not to worry. She needed to understand, precisely and clearly, what was going to happen.

"Clarissa sat with me and my husband, and she explained what the procedure would be like, who would be in the room, what would be happening. She explained that I could ask the doctors or the people in the room to share information with me, or not. That really I was in control of the situation to a certain extent. So she empowered me to be able to take control of that moment in the theatre when they were delivering my baby."

Her daughter arrived safely. And then the postnatal weeks began.

The part nobody prepares you for

The postnatal weeks are where Lynne's account becomes something that will resonate with almost any new mother, and where the value of having a named midwife becomes hardest to replicate.

"Your emotions are up and down. It is one wild roller coaster of a ride and one day you're fine and the next minute you're not."

The practical questions came thick and fast too. "In those first few weeks, I had countless questions, from whether certain noises she was making were normal to how much to feed and bathe her. Having someone experienced to turn to was such a comfort."

For Lynne, who describes herself as someone who "really loves their work and their job", the sudden stillness of maternity leave brought its own particular difficulty. She wanted to stay connected to the life she'd built. She wanted to check emails. And she felt, obscurely, that she shouldn't.

Clarissa told her something that cut through: you don't have to have a maternity leave that is one-size-fits-all. You don't have to go away and forget about your own life and your own identity. There is an alternative.

"She constantly reminded me that every baby is different, every parent is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to such a huge life change. That perspective gave me confidence to embrace motherhood and maternity leave on my own terms."

"She helped me to realise that. And now I'm finding that, and doing that with her support, has been invaluable. Because I don't know if I could have done that on my own. I would have just felt very sad and emotional and not like myself at all. So now I can be a mother feeling like myself at the same time, and just figuring it out as we go along."

The Motherhood Practice, in her own words

When Lynne describes what The Motherhood Practice gave her, she doesn't reach for superlatives. She reaches for structure.

Three things, she says.

The first is accessibility. "The fact that I could message Clarissa at any point during the week with any question that I had, it could have been a minor question such as 'can I take melatonin for my jet lag when I'm in the US?' to something a lot more serious, and she would always respond and give me a well-informed, clinically advised answer."

The second is continuity. "To have that one person to turn to throughout that whole journey was very reassuring."

The third is the one she returns to with the most feeling: emotional support. "The NHS midwives, it's not their fault. They don't have the time to provide that. They have so many people going through the system they need to see." The emotional support, she says, was essential, especially given the miscarriage, and especially given that she was doing this for the first time. "She understood the unexpected toll the postnatal period can take on your state of mind," she wrote, "and helped me navigate it without judgement."

"She really helped me to navigate that, and importantly without judgment, without saying 'this is what you should do' or 'we really advise this.' She helped me to find the answers on my own terms, to figure out what was right for me."

What she would say to you

Lynne has a friend with a saying she loves: I'd rather live at something than live for it. If you're already thinking about it, just go ahead and have it, for when you need it.

She applies this saying to maternity and the support The Motherhood Practice provides, without hesitation.

"When you become pregnant, there are so many questions you just never wondered you'd even have. So many questions during pregnancy, during the birth, and in the weeks afterwards, and you don't really have those questions until you're in that position. So if you're someone who is like me, who required that extra information, that extra support, and if you are already considering The Motherhood Practice, it's clearly something that you're looking for. There is something that you need. So I would say, just go for it. You can only win by having The Motherhood Practice by your side."

The simplest summary of all: "This isn't to discredit the amazing work of the NHS, but rather to say that having Clarissa and The Motherhood Practice alongside you is an added layer of support during one of the biggest and most meaningful experiences of your life."

Check out her live testimonial below and on Instagram!

If you'd like to find out whether The Motherhood Practice is right for you, we'd love to have a conversation.