My love of bellies and babies goes back much further than my formal training. While my classmates back in second grade played “store” or “school” or “bank,” I played “birth” by hiding a soccer ball up my little sister’s shirt and having her “deliver” a cabbage patch baby. My raw interest was shaped as I studied women’s health at UW-Madison and became more interested in the political and ethical issues surrounding childbirth.

After college I spent most of my 20’s in media as an independent filmmaker and photographer. Many of the video and photo topics kept cycling back to health care and birth. One day I realized that while I loved my media work, what I really wanted was to be on the other side of the camera. I did not want to simply interview nurse practitioners and photograph babies – I wanted to do their job!

I have worked as a certified nursing assistant since 2005, and I am currently getting my Masters in Nursing at the University of Minnesota. I have also worked as an intern with a certified nurse-midwife since the spring of 2009, which has allowed me a tremendous amount of clinical exposure to pregnancy and pre-natal care.

I have found that there is a wonderful balance between my work as a nursing assistant / student and my “off the beaten path” approach to childbirth. My mainstream training through nursing classes, my midwifery internship, and my experience as a C.N.A. works well in hospital births because I have good communication skills and experience in dealing with nurses, midwives, and physicians.