A little bit of background on Barbie...

Barbie was born on June 6, 1951, second in a family of four children. Her parents were missionaries to Japan and she spent her childhood growing up in that country in a happy and stable Christian home. After graduating from high school, she returned to the United States and attended nursing school in Colorado. She was married in 1972 and had four children, the first of whom was born in the hospital where she worked as a labor/delivery room nurse and the last three were born at home. Her oldest is now a mother of four, who, by the way, were all caught by “NANA” at home!

Becoming a midwife

It’s been said, “You don’t become a midwife, you’re born a midwife!” Barbie’s love for the birthing process goes way back to early childhood. She always had a desire to work with birthing women and babies. To her, that meant nursing school and from there, God led her to the career she has enjoyed for the past 30-plus years.

• 1971 ~ graduated from nursing school and received an RN license from the state of Arizona.
   

• 1971-1976 ~ Worked as a labor/delivery room nurse in Phoenix, Arizona, also had experience in the newborn nursery and post partum unit.
   

• 1973 ~ attended the AAHCC Childbirth Educator training and completed requirements to teach the “Bradley Method” of Natural Childbirth.
   

• 1976 ~ Was invited to a homebirth and that experience began to answer many of her growing frustrations with routine hospital births and medical intervention. She attended 40+ births with another midwife while “unlearning” many medical procedures and ways of thinking, learning to trust the birthing process and manage births outside of a hospital.
   

• 1976 - 2007 - Has practiced as a homebirth midwife, providing prenatal care, serving as a primary birth
  attendant and doing follow-up care for birthing families. Barbie has attended just over 2000 homebirths, starting in Honolulu, then moved to Lakewood, Colorado in 1980 and finally to Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho in 1985 where she spent the past 22 years.
   

• In 2007, Barbie moved back to Colorado to be closer to her elderly parents and other family members.

Continuing Education

Barbie has been involved with organizations such as the CMA (Colorado Midwives Association), IMC (Idaho Midwifery Council), ICEA (International Childbirth Education Association), MANA (Midwives Alliance of North America), CMI (Christian Midwives International) and is certified through NARM (North America Registry of Midwives). She subscribes to several midwifery-birthing journals and continues to increase her skills and knowledge through study groups, workshops, seminars, midwifery conferences, online continuing education courses and attends regular sessions of peer review.

Other Interests

Besides birthing babies, Barbie enjoys such things as quilting, cooking, biking, fishing, camping, geocaching, scuba diving and swing/country/ballroom dancing.