MEET CLAIRE, COMMUNITY MIDWIFE

I decided to become a midwife in 1996 while I was a college student studying in Ecuador. I spent several weeks with a community midwife who was known to everyone as 'Abuelita' and had attended the births of hundreds of people in her rural community. I was struck by the incredible wisdom she carried, the bonds she maintained with women and their families, and the commitment she felt to providing safe midwifery care to her community (I was also astounded by the fact that she walked miles & miles every day to attend births - without shoes!).

Upon returning to the US, I began to move towards midwifery myself, volunteering as a doula and home birth assistant while living in Philadelphia and Chicago and feeling out my options for training as a midwife. I chose to study both nursing and midwifery because I knew I’d continue to travel internationally throughout my life and I wanted a variety of clinical skills to carry with me. During this time, I spent a year working at a birth center on the Texas/Mexico border and had the opportunity to learn from some truly incredible midwives, as well as from the families who gave birth there. I moved to New Mexico to finish my training because of the rich, long history of midwifery in this state. I also wanted to feel prepared to work in rural settings as a midwife, so I spent time training in Silver City, NM and working with a homebirth midwife serving Amish clients in Lancaster, PA.