The beginning.....

The winter after I graduated from high school, the temperature had dropped to -11 degrees. I was done. Cold weather had finally worn a hole through the thin line that was holding me in Minnesota and I made the choice to move. I was 18 years old and my family knew my independent spirit well enough to realize that no amount of arguing was going to convince me to stay.

When I arrived in Dallas two weeks later, I instantly fell in love. Here was the “big city” I had been looking for. I was able to blend into the pavement and delve into self-discovery in a way that I had never experienced. I enjoyed that anonymity intensely for the first six months. But when I found myself pregnant and not yet 19, I panicked. I wanted to be visible.I wanted people to see me, to notice me, to help me. I was terrified.

On the day of my first prenatal appointment, I walked into the Agape Clinic near the University of Texas campus a pregnant little girl who had no faith in herself or her body. How would I ever carry deliver a child, let alone parent it? But that was a never a question for Carol Wiggs, the nurse midwife who became my care provider.

Carol worked every day with women from all walks of life; first time teenage moms from the area, new immigrant moms desperate for a better life for their babies, local moms who already had ten children. The waiting room at the clinic always was a melting pot of possible pregnancy situations and it never surprised her. The one thing that Carol was able to impart to every patient was her complete faith that each of us would deliver beautiful children and parent them in the best way we knew how. Each appointment with Carol was not only a physical checkup of my pregnancy, but a mini class in self love, confidence, and trust in my body. She recommended books for me to read, websites for me to browse, and concepts for me to spend some time thinking about. More importantly, she taught me that I was strong and completely capable. She helped me to understand that I knew exactly how to do whatever was needed and even when I didn’t trust myself to do it I could step back and listen to my body and instinct.

I gave birth to a beautiful 9 lb 12 oz boy in May of 1997. I fell in love. The first time I held him, I knew that all of the wisdom Carol had shared with me about instinct and self-trust was true. I could figure this out. We would be fine.

I moved back to Minnesota that fall, when my son was only a few months old. The importance of family was suddenly so much more real to me when there was a little life connected to mine. I lost touch with Carol and only recently exchanged a few brief emails with her.

As my son grew, I began to think about what I wanted to do with my life as he got older and less dependent on me. I thought hard about what my passions were and what was important to me. In the end, I started to think about the people who had really affected me and why. Carol kept coming up to the top of my list.

Childbirth fascinated me, but the idea of playing such a significant part of a woman’s life was the concept that kept leading me back to midwifery. I had become more and more interested in holistic and natural health care. It didn’t take long for me to come to the realization that becoming a traditional midwife was the path I was called to.