My life is often busy with helping mothers have babies, but I have a lot of other things going on, too. Here’s a little about how I became a midwife and my life as it is now.

My journey to be a midwife began when I was a little girl. I was always more interested in women having babies than everyone else was. My mother had six sisters and when they had babies, I wanted to know all the details- How much did the baby weigh?, How long was their labor? Did they have a c-section?, Are they breastfeeding? She used to tell me that’s none of my business. I used to spend every summer with my cousins on a farm near Memphis, Texas. They had lots of animals, and when one was giving birth, I did my best to be there.

I got married and my husband, George and I are celebrating our 32nd anniversary this year (2006)! We have five sons- ages 32,22,19,16,and 13. I loved being pregnant and having babies, and I still love being a mother even though they are all getting big now. I just have two boys left at home now, and I am able to work full time now that they are all in school.

I became a nurse in 1979 (started out as an LVN), because I thought that would be the best way to work with mothers and babies. I enjoyed it for awhile, but there were many things that happened in the hospital that I did not agree with- especially the high C-section rate. I did not want to be part of that and I was sometimes the one handing the knife to the surgeon! I was often the one taking the baby to the nursery and away from the Mom. I knew that was wrong!

When we moved to Houston in 1988 for my husbands’ work, I thought I would not work for awhile, because my own children were all small. However, I found a birth center run by a midwife a mile or two from my home and began volunteering there one day a week. I took my baby with me. It was wonderful to see natural, normal births and I knew that was what I wanted to do myself. I continued working at the birth center one or two days a week and slowly began the transition from nurse to midwife. I went to school part time for many years while my boys were young, and eventually got a Masters degree in midwifery from the University of Texas at Galveston.

I was very disappointed with my first two birth experiences (in hospitals). I felt like I had been delivered, not given birth. With my first baby, I was young and uninformed, and in 1974, there was not much choice about anything to do with birth. I was heavily drugged and he was delivered by forceps with a big episiotomy. I planned to have my second baby, at the hospital where I worked as a nurse. I didn’t want drugs, an episiotomy, or to have my baby taken to the nursery. I was pressured into all three things. If I worked there and couldn’t get what I wanted, then who could? I felt like they never listened to me. My boss even checked my wrist band when she came in to start my IV.