What a Midwife vs. Nurse Midwife vs. Doula?

I grew up going to the hospital with both my mother and step-father whenever they would get called into work. I'd spend weeknights and weekends there hanging out with doctors and nurses, helping mom run CT scans on patients and moving from department to department.

I'm very comfortable in that environment and don't have any of the fears that most people have in hospitals. So it's not intimidation that directs me away from the Nurse Midwife profession, it's actually because a hospital is too limiting for me.

My desire to be a homebirth/birth center Midwife is so that I can provide mothers, babies and their families with as many options as possible while maintaining a safe and protected environment.

Within the home setting of birth, I want to have clinical responsibility for the well-being of the mother and baby. Throughout my life I've always strived for as much ownership as possible and it doesn't really get bigger than taking care of two lives.

I also want to be involved in the actual birth of the baby. I think of the baby in the womb as a being with unlimited potential. As the baby comes into the world he or she is immediately shown sights, sounds, sensations and boundaries. It takes only a second to ground that baby to this earth and I want to help with that process.

Nurse Midwives are able to provide uplifting support and care to women who want to birth in hospitals and Doulas are so very very important to birth. Both provide a service that is truly beyond words and I'm so grateful that women are beginning to have more and more birth options available to them.