My path to midwifery started subtly many years ago. My first glimmer of midwifery was in 1983 when my mother was pregnant with my brother and sister. In those days, siblings were not allowed in the birth room. However, my dad complied with my request and called me the first moment he had a chance. “You got what you asked for, a boy and a girl.” This is still one of my most profound and dearest memories, topped only by the births of my daughter and son.

There would be many years between that first pang and practicing as a primary midwife. After my first bachelor's degree in nutrition and dietetics (1996 - Life College, Marietta, GA), I began to do some soul-searching about what I really wanted to do with my life. I had the good fortune to live in Ithaca, NY at the time, a place that was crawling with midwives, doulas and folks interested in birth. I began inviting midwives to lunch with me and picked their brains. One of my final meetings was with two homebirth midwives in the area. They invited me to attend a group prenatal with their clients and instantly I knew I was hooked. Back then, I never imagined leaving NY.

To practice legally in NY, then and now, one had to pass the American Midwifery Certification Board (an organization closely associated with the American College of Nurse Midwives). I knew practicing legally would help legitimize my practice and homebirth. 
Linda, a non-nurse midwife, who had jumped through all the hoops and had become the first Certified Midwife (CM – non nurse midwife) in NY had strongly suggested I get my degree in nursing before I pursued my midwifery path. She told me about an accelerated nursing program for those already holding BS degrees through Binghamton University, an hour from Ithaca.

Within the next year I was enrolled in the accelerated nursing program and on my path to becoming a midwife. I gained so much more than I expected from my year at Binghamton University. I learned that one can be a midwife to more than a pregnant or birthing mom.

Upon graduating in the fall of 2000, I began working as a labor and delivery nurse at a small community hospital in Binghamton. Binghamton also had a fair share of midwives that worked within the hospital system. Here I learned that beautiful hospital births can be possible too. My stay in Binghamton was short, however, so that I could continue on my path.

I relocated to Poughkeepsie, NY and began working at Vassar Brother Medical Center. While this hospital had more of the typical medicalized birth, I became familiar with hospital systems and I attended over 3,000 births. I learned how to recognize abnormal, and in my opinion, learned to remain calm in the face of those abnormalities, both for myself and for the clients.

Finally I began midwifery school at Stony Brook University. After graduating in 2004, I was committed to working in an out-of-hospital setting, similar to my training as a midwife at Connecticut Childbirth and Women’s Center. This search brought me to Wisconsin to practice in a free-standing birth center where I worked for just over a year. 

In September of 2005 I married and in October of 2006 our daughter Maeve was born into the loving hands of her parents, at home, with midwives Ingrid Andersson LM, CNM, Jane Peterson LM, CPM and Hannah Copp CNM at our side. In September of 2009 we welcomed our son Jude with the help of Ingrid, Jane and Britt. During my pregnancy with Maeve I had been assisting and working with Ingrid in her homebirth practice, Community Midwives. With Ingrid’s support, I began my own homebirth practice in the winter of 2007. I will always be grateful to have Ingrid in my life, personally and professionally. We continue to work closely despite having independent practices.