Welcome to My Blog

For those of you reading my blog, I am a nurse midwife practicing in Baltimore. My job fills me with great joy and pride in the care I provide to women and their families. Over the past few years, I have developed a special interest in the Latin American community. This stems from frequent vacations I have taken to Costa Rica combined with the increasing number of Hispanic women seeking care in the practice for which I work. I have found these women and their families to be very close, strong-knit units who display immense gratitude for the care I provide. The women labor beautifully, often without pain medicines, and show such incredible internal motivation and strength - all while continuing to smile and be gracious in the throws of labor transitions.

Because these women have filled me with great satisfaction with my job, I decided that I wanted to give something back to them - better communication through language acquisition and an understanding of their cultural beliefs surrounding childbirth.

While researching Spanish language and midwifery on the Internet I stumbled across a video of a Mexican midwife on youtube (see my video clip). Watching the video of her touched me so much that it had me in tears, crying in fact. After watching her gentle approach to healing and expression of belief in alternative therapies, I knew right then and there that I had to meet her. So, I researched further and found a language school in Cuernavaca, Mexico that sends students to live and work with this particular midwife - I knew it was fate! The decision was made. My job graciously granted me a leave of absence and I am off to Mexico where I will be spending 6 weeks in the language school to learn Spanish (I started teaching myself in the spring with the help of Rosetta Stone and a personal tutor). I will then live with Angelina and her family and follow her around, like a child eager to absorb new learning material while she runs the birth center next to her house. Hopefully I will get to catch a baby or two.

The days are quickly approaching until my departure date of January 10th. I am marking off a long list of things to do and spending some good quality time with my army of animals and my very understanding and supportive partner, Bryan.

Stay tuned...