Each new life starts with a precious story. A story of love, joyful anticipation, and birth.
At Birth Story Obstetrics, we co-create your story from beginning to birth, providing exceptional prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care with an emphasis on empowering you, our patient, from the moment we meet. Our practice was founded on the belief that each patient deserves to feel educated and confident throughout their journey, so they can realize the full transformative potential of pregnancy and birth.
We focus on caring for a limited number of families in order to provide ample time for in-depth and intentional care that involves you as integral authors of your birth story and plan. We have structured our entire practice - policies, staffing, services, and fee structure - to ensure that exceptional patient care and positive health outcomes are the priority.
Our practice is evidence-based, trauma-informed, and gender-inclusive; we aim to make each and every patient and their family feel valued, respected, and at ease as they embark on this collaborative, dynamic journey.
All deliveries are done at the St Joseph Medical Center Childbirth Center in Bellingham, and we provide referrals for pediatric and primary care, to ensure a seamless transition of care for your new baby.
Meet Dr. Anna Dowling, MD
“I partner with my patients and their families to co-create a story of love, joyful anticipation, and personal agency. It is my deepest desire for my patients to feel grounded in their body, bonded to their baby, and empowered by their birth.”
Anna Dowling, MD is an Ob/Gyn specializing in women’s healthcare. For nearly two decades, she has proudly served communities in the Pacific Northwest.
Dr. Dowling is fueled by a passion for genuine, heartfelt connection with her patients and their families. Her holistic approach to medicine reflects her belief that health and well-being requires so much more than attending to our physical bodies. She believes we all possess innate wisdom which is meant to be nurtured and honored if we are to truly thrive.
This philosophy recently led Dr. Dowling to embark on a twelve month fellowship in Contemplative Medicine through the prestigious New York Zen Center. The fellowship emphasizes an approach to care that nurtures the flow of wholehearted intimacy, connection, and awareness naturally available between individuals, and aims to transform the culture of medical care in our country.
Education
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Degree: Doctor of Medicine (MD)Oregon Health & Science University-OHSU GME
Specialty: Obstetrics and GynecologyNew York Zen Center
Fellow, Contemplative Medicine
Dr. Dowling attended medical school at UCLA and completed her residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology at Oregon Health and Science University. After completion of her medical training, she practiced at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, Alaska before moving to Bellingham, Washington in 2011. She joined Bellingham Obstetrics & Gynecology (BOGA) where she was a partner until 2017. After the birth of her third child, she left BOGA to join the PeachHealth Obstetric Hospitalist group where she provided inpatient and emergency pregnancy care. In Dec. 2018, she also established a gynecology clinic at PeaceHealth Peace Island Medical Center on San Juan Island. Dr. Dowling is passionately committed to ensuring all families are safe and supported regardless of where they choose to have their baby - be it in the hospital, a free-standing birth center, or their home. To this end, she established the Smooth Transitions Committee at St Joseph Medical Center to cultivate collaboration between midwives offering out-of-hospital delivery and hospital staff. In August 2023, Dr. Dowling left PeaceHealth to follow her dream of creating Birth Story Obstetrics.
She and her husband, Matthew, are blessed to be raising three beautiful children. They love spending time together rambling around in the wilderness hiking, biking, boating, camping, skiing, and exploring.