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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The spark for my birthwork journey was lit in 2005, when 18 year old me gave birth to my now almost 20 year old daughter, Malin, unmedicated and surrounded by love and encouragement. Through this profound experience, I felt so called to help support women. I attended my first birth as a doula in 2007, after having completed my DONA doula training. In 2010, I began midwifery school at the Virginia School of Traditional Midwifery, and was simultaneously asked to join on as a student midwife with a busy homebirth practice in Northern Virginia. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from eight different CPMs during my years as a student. This diverse experience greatly enhanced my perspective, strengthened my skills, and deepened my understanding of what it is to be a community midwife.
In 2015, I earned my CPM credential as well as my license from the Virginia Board of Medicine. In addition to maintaining current CPR and NNR certifications, I actively engage in ongoing education through classes, workshops, and conferences to stay current in my field. After close to a decade of midwifing, co-running Fredericksburg’s first freestanding birth center with Lori for seven years, and countless sleepless nights later, in 2024, I made the big decision to move to Florida and follow my heart. After a restorative sabbatical, I had the opportunity to travel back to Virginia for two weeks a month to be reimmersed in the birth world at Tree of Life, and I couldn’t be happier. What can I say? You can take the girl outta midwifery, but not midwifery outta the girl!
Between my midwife duties, I am also TOL’s resident henna artist. You can find me the other weeks of the month in sunny Miami, taking care of all my plant babies, enjoying the beach with my man, and adorning folks with henna!
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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.