Category: Blessings Abound

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Apparently, Some Things Really Do Run in the Family

I traveled down some very familiar roads last week, Thursday September 24th, and learned a little more about a woman I never really had the chance to know.

My great-grandmother Bertie (Bertha Mae Ransom Thompson, for those of you who may have had her on your great grandparents birth records and are armchair geneaologists,) was a homebirth midwife, dedicated to serving other women. I learned that she was also known for being brutally frank.

Well.

Apparently some things really do run in the family.

Then I looked more closely at the old photographs of her and realized something else.

Annie Hill outdoors beside a wooded lake.
I looked a little tired, but I’d been traveling a bit with more to come ahead…

I have her eyes.

I can’t quite explain how comforting that is. The same eyes, a bit of the same attitude, and generations apart, the same calling to serve women.

So, in the very brief time I had before I needed to return to Arkansas, where we’ve become very busy, I had the chance to sit beside the AuSable River in Mio, Michigan, and reflect.

I will gladly remain brutally frank if it means giving women the chance to have informed consent and to be in the driver’s seat for their pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experience.

Brutally frank doesn’t mean unkind.

Sometimes it means saying what needs to be said. Sometimes it means asking the question no one else has asked. Sometimes it means making sure a woman understands that she has choices, that her questions matter, and that her voice belongs in the room.

It means being what she needs, whatever that is, to help make sure her needs are heard and respected during this transformative time of life.

And then there’s another part of this story that makes it even more meaningful to me.

Portrait of Paula Branam.My cousin Paula Branam has the same great-grandmother.  Yes, that Paula here at Bright Blessings.

And Paula seems every bit as driven to care for women, particularly during the postpartum segment of their childbearing journey.

Now I have the privilege of having her learn from me as she prepares for her own work as a doula.

There is something deeply meaningful about that.

Bertie could never have known where her work would lead. She couldn’t have known that generations later, two of her great-granddaughters would find themselves drawn to caring for women and families.

More than a hundred years ago, Bertie served women in her community as a midwife.

Today, I’m still doing the work.  Back at my desk in Arkansas, less than a week later, as I prepare for the doula training program to launch, for the upcoming Doula Conference for the Doula Alliance of Arkansas,  and continue to work on health care credentialling – which means signing contracts to be in network with insurance providers here in Arkansas.

And now I get to teach Paula some of what I’ve learned, while both of us, in our own ways, honor the woman who came before us.

Different generations. Different kinds of birthwork. Different communities.

But that same thread keeps running through our family.

Same eyes.

Same calling.

And another generation carrying it forward.

I think our great-grandmother would have been pretty pleased by that, too.

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What We’ve Been Building While the Journal Was Quiet

If you have been watching the Bright Blessings Journal, you may have noticed that it has been quiet since August 29. That is not because there has been nothing to say. It is because almost all of our available time has gone into the work itself.

The first two weeks of September brought the beginning of Arkansas Medicaid coverage for doula care, the last stages of provider enrollment, training, new systems, new clients, and the continuing work of turning Bright Blessings from a solo practice into an Arkansas doula collective.

Arkansas Medicaid doula care is here

On September 1, Arkansas Medicaid’s new Supportive Maternal Care benefit became effective. I submitted my provider enrollment application that morning, worked through a returned application and its requested corrections, and received confirmation on September 9 that I am officially enrolled as an Arkansas Medicaid provider.

This matters far beyond an identification number. It means Bright Blessings can now accept Arkansas Medicaid clients for covered doula services under the new benefit. It also means that the months spent following legislation, attending meetings, reading manuals, asking questions, and preparing our systems have moved into actual client care.

We have already begun moving Medicaid inquiries into active care. Because the benefit requires at least one in-person visit, we are building our scheduling and intake process around both compliance and the practical needs of Arkansas families. Our lead forms, contracts, insurance-card collection, documentation, and appointment workflow have all needed attention at once.

You can learn more on our Arkansas Medicaid Doula Care page.

Preparing as a team

Annie Hill and Danielle Wright attending new provider training.Danielle Wright and I attended the Arkansas Medicaid New Provider Workshop together on September 8. The photograph with this post was taken that day. It represents a great deal more than sitting beside one another at a training. It is part of the work of building shared knowledge, dependable backup, and a collective that can serve families across Central Arkansas without placing everything on one doula.

Danielle has been added to our practice system, and we are building the procedures that allow inquiries to be assigned appropriately while keeping records, privacy, scheduling, and client communication consistent. Paula Branam and Renee Bertot are also continuing their student pathways as Bright Blessings grows the next layer of the team.

That kind of growth is not especially glamorous from the outside. It looks like agreements, forms, calls, training, careful decisions, and a surprising number of small technical changes. It is still the foundation that makes reliable care possible.

There has been public work, too

During these same two weeks, Arkansas news coverage began helping families understand that Medicaid doula care is becoming available. I have continued conversations with maternal-health leaders, health plans, hospitals, community partners, and other doulas about how this new benefit will work in practice.

We have also been updating the Bright Blessings website, bringing our team information forward, changing our public language from waiting for Medicaid enrollment to accepting Medicaid clients, and preparing for upcoming community events. Behind that is ongoing work on Learn to Doula Village and the training systems needed by doulas who want to enter this field prepared for both community care and the realities of professional practice.

So, why were we quiet?

Because we were building.

Bright Blessings is entering a different stage now. We are no longer only preparing for Arkansas Medicaid doula coverage. We are providing care within it. We are no longer talking abstractly about becoming a collective. We are putting the people, systems, and expectations in place to function as one.

There will be more to share as this work develops. For now, if you are pregnant, have Arkansas Medicaid, and are looking for doula support in our service area, you can schedule a clarity call to begin.