Midwives

The midwives in our practice have met the standards set forth by the North American Registry of Midwives for the Certified Professional Midwife credential and are licensed under the Virginia Board of Medicine.

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  • My introduction to midwifery was 26 years ago when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. My midwife was kind and compassionate, listened to my concerns, and genuinely cared for me and my baby. Although I continued with midwifery care for my next two pregnancies, I quickly became disheartened with the medical model and hospital care. For my fourth pregnancy, I wanted a homebirth with a CPM. My choices were limited since I was having twins, but I did find a midwife that believed in my body as much as I did. This entire experience changed me and started me on my path to becoming a CPM.

    I have a Bachelor’s degree in Behavioral and Social Science with a minor in Sociology. During my midwifery training, I attended homebirths, worked in a high-volume birth center in Texas, and a hospital in Belize. In 2007, I earned the CPM credential and became licensed under the Virginia Board of Medicine.

    To date, I have attended 700+ births. Outside of helping to maintain our busy midwifery practice, I have an amazingly supportive husband and 8 children, 5 of which have been born at home with CPMs. We have homeschooled since our oldest was 5. In 2016, our practice had the honor of attending my grandson’s birth at home.  In my copious amounts of spare time, I enjoy working out, hanging with my kids, and vacations to anywhere tropical.

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  • My journey to midwifery began with the very medicalized birth of my son in 1995.  I remember feeling disconnected and almost disoriented after my hospital birth. I had always thought birth was going to be a powerful experience. Instead, I felt like an object that things were done to rather than an active participant in my birth, and that the experience was fundamentally very wrong. These feelings stayed with me and led me to midwifery. 

    I started actively studying Midwifery as a member of a local Richmond study group in 2009 after spending years reading every midwifery book I could get my hands on. The following year, in 2010, I began Midwifery school at The Virginia School of Traditional Midwifery, where I first met Leah,  and was offered my first apprenticeship with a homebirth midwife in Richmond. I have been actively attending home and birth center births as an apprentice midwife and midwife's assistant since, attending over 200 births with 12 midwives in 6 practices across Virginia. I deeply value the broad scope of experiences working with multiple practices afforded me.  In December of 2018 I earned my CPM credential and was licensed by the Virginia Board of Medicine in March of 2019. I maintain current certifications in CPR and NRP as well as regularly participating in conferences and workshops to further my knowledge and skills. 

    I am excited to join the Tree of Life team and honored to be a part of caring for and nurturing their “mommas”. 

    In my off call time you can find me near the water - a beach or river preferably. I enjoy swimming, reading, cooking and live music. 

  • I was born and raised in England and traveled around the world as a Norland Nanny. The cross-cultural experiences I encountered have given me a variety of perspectives on parenting and family life. I attended Norland Nursery Training College in Bath, England, and finished with the NNEB diploma (National Nursery Examination Board). After I married, I worked as a live-in maternity nurse, known today as a postpartum doula, and did some consulting work with new mothers through several pediatricians’ offices in NOVA.

    As my own five children have married and started having children of their own, I was invited to seven grandchildren’s births. I feel especially honored to have been invited by my daughter and my two daughters in law to be present at their children’s births. It was during my first grandchild’s birth that the home birth midwife asked if I had ever thought about becoming a midwife or a doula. Midwives I knew about, but I was not familiar with the role of doulas. Soon after, I found myself embarking on a new path as a doula.

    In 2013, I began work as a doula within a hospital setting and transitioned to a home birth assistant by 2017. It was in that year that I also began working as a doula with Tree of Life. I am also certified as a SBD Doula (StillBirthDay Doula) which allows me to support grieving families as a bereavement doula. By 2019 I began my CPM (Certified Professional Midwife) apprenticeship under the tutelage of four amazing, yet very different, midwives. Shortly, I shall sit for my CPM exam and then apply for a license to practice midwifery in Virginia.

    My brother and I were both born at home and although I was only 16 months older than my brother, I did my best to help my Mum look after him. Even at that young age, my natural desire to be with and work with babies was very clear. My parents remember me as a shy child except when I was helping with babies or young children. My husband, Jim, and I have five children and ten grandchildren. Over the years, we have been foster parents to more than one hundred babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. My heart for caring for young children and mothers has also lead me to volunteer my time as an advocate for young children in foster care, as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) and as a doula for women at Mary’s Shelter in Fredericksburg and at the Paul Stefan Home in Culpeper, Virginia. When not at a birth, I enjoy spending time with family, especially the grandchildren, knitting, sewing, jogging, and flying back to England to visit my family across The Pond.