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It has been my honor to assist Atlanta families at their births for over 25 years.  My students and I feel strongly that prenatal care, birth and postpartum care are a family event if that is what the family chooses.  Children are always welcome and are encouraged to participate.  Over 75% of our mothers choose water for their labors and/or birth.  

I am a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) and hold a midwifery license in Tennessee.  Unfortunately, at this time, neither are recognized in this state. Through the years I have become more active in both state and national midwifery politics.  I am president of the GA Midwifery Association, legislative chair for the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), and serve on the board of the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM).                                     

Don and I married in 1973.  We have two adult children, one son-in-law and two wonderful grandchildren.

I grew up in Hong Kong where I volunteered at the local hospital.  I started in pediatrics at the age of 13.  Our school nurse saw that there were several of us that had a nursing bend and spent six months teaching us a nurses aide program.  We did our clinicals at the hospital. On my 16th birthday I saw my first birth and continued to work in L&D until I returned to the States in 1972.  I finished my senior year of high school while working prn/weekends at the hospital.  There were no openings in pediatrics or L&D so I was placed in geriatrics.  In the meantime, I was accepted into the nursing school.  After a short period of time I realized that geriatrics was not my gift.  I left the hospital and nursing school, became a medical assistant, and started working for a pediatrician. 

Friends started having unassisted homebirths and ask me to attend.  I realized that it was important that there be someone there who had a clue and was fortunate enough to find a midwife in 1981 who was willing to train me.  I have been learning ever since.

I have been married since 2002.  Jeremy and I have a beautiful daughter.  Since I’ve been a child I have had a heart for people, and loved being with them. Recovering from a childhood injury (which was a long process) I discovered that my hands both desired to give to others and had some gifts in healing. I started researching ideas that would fit my gifts and heart-desire, and explored different avenues—I think almost everything but midwifery. I thought about being a doctor of some kind—homeopathy, chiropractic, naturopath--or a massage therapist, and not one quite fit who I was. But I focused on the sciences in high school, thinking “medicine” in some form would be where I headed..

To give you my background on normal childbirth you need to know a little history about my family. I was the last, and favorite of my mom’s births: after years of reading about childbirth, fighting with doctors to get their natural births, and having natural births in hospitals, my parents were living in California when they became pregnant with me, and found a doctor who was doing homebirths near them. They were ecstatic, and enjoyed their 1^st homebirth immensely. That experience apparently started a trend in my family, since most of my nieces and nephews were also born at home. Thus I have always considered pregnancy and birth to be normal, natural, empowering events in a woman’s life.

I spent several months just reading and immersing myself in birth stories and philosophy, and a midwifery textbook. When we moved to Arizona (for 8 months) I easily found a (legal, state-certified!) midwife to apprentice with. She had a very low birth rate, but it was a gentle introduction to the world of midwifery. Arriving back in Atlanta, I found the GA midwifery community, and was excited to realize there was an opening for an apprentice! As I began to be invited to births in those first few months Jeremy and I made a lot of adjustments to the “real” midwifery lifestyle. It has been very rewarding as my training has gotten more intense, to realize that midwifery is indeed where my heart is, and a part of who I am.

I’m excited to be involved with you during your pregnancy. I am in the final phase of my training (I’ve assisted at about 90 births and am now accepting clients where I am their primary, but supervised, caregiver), and I look forward to continue learning the art of midwifery. Birth certainly keeps me humble! I am involved in independently directed academic work, as well as the full-time apprenticeship with Debbie.  I hope to be ready to take the CPM exams through NARM in about 2 years. 

Hello, my name is Christy Proctor. I am 34 years old and have been married 16 years. I have 5 children, 3 girls, 2boys. My last 2 births were homebirths with the last one being a water birth.

During my first homebirth I was in total awe of being able to be responsible for making decisions about my pregnancy and all the knowledge I gained by spending time with my midwife and being able to actually ask questions without being criticized. The birth itself was the most empowering experience I have ever had, although my midwife was there to make sure everything was ok she reminded me afterwards that I was the one who did all the work not her. At that moment I knew I had to be a midwife. I started learning from that point and I am now apprenticing. I look forward to one day being a midwife.

Being a midwife, to me, is about laying out the stepping stones for mothers and their family to take a wonderful journey they will never forget and be their guide when they need it, but yet it is still their journey that have been blessed to be apart of!