Hi, my name is AlexAnn and I am a Midwife and Director of Our Community Birth Center. Many of you know me quite well, but for those who don’t, here is an introduction. Thank you to all of you for being part of the birth center community and for your outpouring of support to help restore birth center services to Lane County!
I was born at Sacred Heart Hospital in downtown Eugene into the hands of a Certified Nurse Midwife. Our Community Birth Center’s Board President, Mary Carpenter CNM, was one of the midwives who helped care for my mom during her pregnancy. I grew up in Lane County and attended the University of Oregon where I studied Spanish and also completed prerequisites for nursing school. While I was a freshman at the UO, I discovered my calling to be a midwife. Interestingly, I also considered going into fundraising/development and I worked in the Development Office at the UO as a student. Now I know that was a foreshadowing of the future!
I attended nursing and midwifery school at OHSU in Portland and I loved it. After graduating in 2014, I worked at a wonderful and busy midwifery practice in Harrisonburg, Virginia. This was an amazing start to my career where I did lots of gynecology, CenteringPregnancy group prenatal care, hospital births, and assisting in c-sections. I had my own baby while living in Virginia in 2016. We made a special journey to The Farm Midwifery Center in Tennessee where he was born in a cabin in the woods. (I seriously considered flying out to give birth at the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center but came to the conclusion that The Farm was the next best option). Being a mom has made being a midwife even more special as my clients are now also my peers and we are adventuring along our parenting journeys simultaneously!
In 2017, I was thrilled to get to move back home to Lane County and work with the midwives at the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center. This had been my dream job since I first visited the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center at the grand opening ceremony of the new facility in Springfield in 2010 as a young aspiring midwife not even in nursing school yet.
When the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center closed in 2019, there was no question of what to do next. It was instantly clear to me that I would be part of opening a new birth center. Lane County needs a birth center now as much as it ever has. We, the community, and in particular birthing parents like myself, will have the last say in what birth options are available for us. We named it Our Community Birth Center because that is exactly what it is and what it will be for generations to come. The Lane County community owns the birth center and we all have made it very clear that we are willing to put in the time, energy, resources, and compassion to open a new nonprofit birth center!
The birth center has many things to celebrate this year! I am also celebrating that I am honored to have received the 2020 Susan E. King Emerging Leader in Nursing Practice Award from the Oregon Nurses Association for my work to open Our Community Birth Center!
With Gratitude,
AlexAnn Westlake CNM (she/her)
