My mother travelled to a strange city and stayed in a relative's house in the weeks leading up to my due date in order to have a vaginal birth with me. Perhaps it was this gesture that wove midwifery so deeply into the fabric of my spirit that I could not possibly look away. The women of my family have always been healers and craftspeople (I consider midwifery to imbibe both of these things); nurses, mothers, basket-weavers and pie-makers extraordinaire and I feel well suited to carry on the tradition.

I grew up in a small rural town in Ontario, Canada at the base of the Bruce Peninsula. I spent my winters building huge snow forts and my summers scurrying through cedar woods and tumbling on the beaches of Lake Huron. As an adult I found myself living in the magical (and cold!) French-Canadian city of Montreal, and briefly a barmaid in Glasgow, Scotland …all of this before arriving in Portland in 2008.

I first became interested in midwifery as a young woman working as a nanny to a newborn in Montreal. My awareness of birth emerged in tandem with my curiosity about what it meant to me to be a woman. I quickly found my very wise mentors that trained me to be a doula and I began attending births by the time I was twenty years old. I worked in a vibrant multicultural community, working mostly with refugee women who, despite their challenging pasts, bravely brought forth babies in fierce love and courage. Eventually I decided that I wanted to continue my journey and become a midwife, and, drawn by the amazing curriculum at Birthingway and Portland's fantastic reputation, I packed up my apartment and my cat into a minivan and drove across Canada. I have no regrets. I soon found Alma and was delighted learn from a group of such brilliant and lovely women. I am so honored to have such a nurturing, spirited place to come into my own as a midwife.

Outside of my life at Alma I enjoy reading and writing fiction, attempting to learn the family craft of basketry, listening to old blues records, cooking and eating, and enjoying the company of my friends and family.