About Cynthia

        I am a traditional, apprentice-trained, Christian midwife who is also State Licensed and nationally credentialed. I have been studying and practicing midwifery since 1980. I completed a four year apprenticeship with Patricia Edmonds from Forest Grove, Oregon. During that time I attended many births with her and in 1990 began caring for my own clients in the Lincoln City area with the

direct supervision of Patricia. In November of 1993, I sat for the certification examination that at that time was given by the Oregon Midwifery Council, and passed. In 1994 I became a Licensed Direct Entry Midwife by becoming licensed by the state of Oregon. As an Oregon licensed midwife I have privileges to use legend drugs and devices. This means that I have attended continuing education courses where I became skilled in using anti-hemorrhagic medications, oxygen and I.V. therapy for the treatment of shock and dehydration. I can administer Vitamin K and Erythromycin to the newborn and administer the Rhogam injection to Rh-negative mothers. I can also use local anesthetic and place sutures. In May of 1998, I became a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM), Certified by the North American Registry of Midwives.

I have served as the vice president, and Secretary of the Oregon Midwifery Council, and attend regular peer review and statewide meetings. I also attend as many continuing education workshops as I can. I hold a current Adult CPR, Standard First Aid, and Certification in Neonatal Resuscitation and Advanced Life Support for newborns. I have completed the Cesarean Prevention Movement's childbirth educator course, called "Birth Works", and use the class content to teach my own clients during the course of their prenatal care. I am a faculty member of the National College of Midwives in Taos, New Mexico, through which I am a preceptor for apprenticing midwives. I am also a preceptor for Birthingway College of Midwifery in Portland, Oregon and Aviva Institute. These apprentices are involved in varying degrees in my practice. I oversee their midwifery academics for the college, and provide them with the hands on midwifery skills they require to become midwives through the apprenticeship model. I was appointed to sit on Oregon's state midwifery board in 2010. I am honored to be involved in the decision making process that will ensure the future of midwifery in Oregon and to be an agent of change in a time when the maternity health care system in our nation is in such need of positive change and improvement. I believe that home birth midwives who attend women in homes and free standing birth centers across our state, and nation, are the solution that our country needs to solve the problems that currently exist in our maternity care system. I regularly host training workshops to the midwives in our state to obtain and renew their legend drugs and devices skills. I teach some of the courses and provide the midwives with the transcripts they need to present to the state upon licensing or renewing. I am the wife of the most wonderful "midwife's husband" ever. He has been to about 20 births with me in the past 12 years. He attended these births by special request from the parents. He is a very strong and calming presence to the expectant dads. Being married to a midwife is a very tough and thankless job. I appreciate him for all the support he gives me. I am also the mother of two beautiful adult daughters. Both were born with the same midwife who trained me. My oldest daughter was a planned home birth, but we were transferred to the hospital after a long and exhausting 36 hour labor. She was born vaginally and I went home 6 hours after her birth. My youngest daughter was born at home 4 years later after an 11 hour labor. That same midwife, Patricia, was also present during the births of my two grandsons, whom I was extremely honored to receive from my oldest daughter. I also have a beautiful granddaughter who was added to our family in 2009. She came too fast for Patricia to be there, but again I was blessed to be her mommy's midwife. I can't imagine ever retiring. I am often asked why I chose to be a midwife. I reply "I did not choose midwifery. Midwifery chose me." I have always had a fascination with pregnancy and babies. Of any kind; dogs, cats, hamsters, rats, fish, guinea pigs, sea horses, my aunt and eventually my friends and of course myself. When I was a young girl, I moved a lot and I couldn't wait to search the new library for any books on childbirth. I loved seeing pictures of birth, even though those pictures were of draped and shaved women, with almost no resemblance to a person, I still was fascinated by the beauty of the birth of the baby. I loved pictures, drawings and diagrams of the pregnant woman and was so thrilled to feel my cousins moving in my aunt's big belly or the baby kitties and puppies of my pregnant pets. When I was 4 years old, I was witness to the birth of a litter of puppies. I remember how odd it felt to feel so calm and yet so excited at the same time. I think this was the beginning of my midwifery calling. During my adolescence I realized that my peers did not share this fascination and in fact most of them found the whole process "disgusting". I on the other hand found it beautiful and mysterious and exhilarating. I still do. I love caring for women and the relationships that form out of that caring. I love teaching families that they can bring their children into the world without bright lights, machines and drugs. I love empowering them by encouraging them to take full responsibility for their birth experiences, complete with Daddies being the first person to touch their new babies. Traditional midwifery brings a wholeness of mind, body and spirit to birth. I have a very solid common sense approach to pregnancy and birth that is easy to share. Midwifery is my calling and ministry to families. Midwifery is not a job, it is a lifestyle. Midwifery is not my job, but my passion and my life because through it I can let the love and light of God touch all those who I am called to serve.

Follow Me On....