Patient Story: Katie Wolf

Katie Wolf is the executive director of eCare at Massachusetts General Hospital. She leads the hospital’s work with the Epic electronic health record and other clinical systems.

She and her wife Angie gave birth to their daughter with the Mass General Midwifery Service.

Q: Why did you choose Mass General Midwifery Service?

A: After being escalated to high-risk at another hospital, I wanted a second opinion.  Mass General found no cause to classify me as high-risk, and I angled my care towards midwifery.  My research had shown that midwives had lower intervention rates and more time spent with patients. Both of these things appealed to my wife and me, so we opted for midwifery care.

Q: How did you feel about your experience with the midwifery team?

A: I loved my care at Mass General. I appreciated delivering in a hospital where midwives could guide me through my birth, and an operating room was just around the corner in the event of an emergency. My care teams for both of my pregnancies crafted my birth preferences with me, and we worked as a team as I crossed into my 40th, 41st and 42nd weeks of pregnancy.

Q: Is there anything about your birth experience that has stayed with you?

A: I really appreciated the thoughtful approach to my care. I experienced a rare and unexpected complication in the weeks after delivering my first daughter. When I was pregnant with my second, I worked with several care teams to craft a plan to avoid future complications. The midwives led me through my birth, obstetrics followed me through the postpartum period and a consult group worked with me both prepartum and postpartum.

When my labor onset precipitously, I bypassed anther hospital en route to Mass General, which meant risking birth in my car. My midwife had made my care plan well known, so there was no way I was having my baby at any other hospital given the lengths the team went to planning for our delivery.  

Q: If you were telling a friend about the Midwifery Service, what would you say? 

A: I found the midwives at Mass General to be compassionate, highly competent clinicians. I would deliver again with them in a heartbeat.

Read more patient stories from the Midwifery Service.