Recs for Bradley instructor Maria Cleveland

[Anonymous]

I'm looking for a Bradley instructor and apparently I've started my search late. The timing is right for a class taught by Maria Cleveland, but I could not find any comments about her class while searching this forum. Comments? Suggestions? All of the well-recommended instructors from this forum have classes that would not end until after my due date or are located too far south.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

i don't know maria cleveland, but i took a bradley class with susan gunn. maybe you could ask her for her thoughts -- she might know maria?

here's susan email: [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

Maria has been teaching for many years (at least 10, I think). I've interacted with her via email, message boards, and telephone over the last 6 years and have been impressed by her professionalism, knowledge and graciousness. I think she's a very good Bradley teacher. I think her name doesn't come up on DCUMs because she lives too far from DC. She's in Gaithersburg, isn't she? I hope you can join her course. I think you will be very pleased.
-Susan Gunn, Bradley Method instructor in Adams Morgan

[Anonymous]

I took Maria's class when I was pregnant with #1. Keeping in mind that I have no basis of comparison, I thought she was good but didn't blow me away. She delivered lots of useful information, was dogmatic but not militant about medical intervention (which is where I was, so that suited me), and had a very personable style - relating personal anecdotes from her own four births and from verious births she had attended. One big plus is that she had actually delivered in a hospital (I was one of the few in the class intentionally going for a hospital birth) so she had some practical advice regarding that. She just didn't have a super dynamic teaching style. But overall, I thought the class was very useful, I was glad she condensed it into 8 weeks, and I got a lot out of it. I was not successful in avoiding medication when I birthed, although the class educated me on making the right choices, appreciating that I made the right choices after the fact, and in accepting the way things went with my birth even though it was't what I envisioned.