Cindi Jenkins Wylie, CNM

My path to birth work began with my own pregnancy and birth experiences. I was young and under-educated about pregnancy and birth when I had my first baby in 2000. The experience was an impersonal whirlwind that left me traumatized and afraid to have another child. In an effort to better prepare myself during my second pregnancy, I enrolled in a childbirth education class taught by a doula. It was in this class that learned about midwives, doulas, and a gentler way of giving birth. I switched to a midwife during the middle of the pregnancy and absolutely loved the care I received. I had a healing birth in the hospital with a midwife and knew at that time that midwifery was my calling. I enrolled in nursing school in 2003, not long after my second child's birth. I have since gone on to give birth with the support of wonderful midwives in a free-standing birth center and at home. In my experiences as a woman and mother, a nurse and a midwife, I have seen the power of women and birth. I have seen the difference that a caring attendant and supportive environment make. Labor and birth are a journey for a mother and family. Being born is how each of our stories began. I believe that all women deserve to be loved and supported and all babies deserve to enter the world peacefully. I have been working as a registered nurse since 2006. For the first two years of my career, I worked in emergency and home health. In 2008, I started my career working with moms and babies as a labor, delivery, and postpartum nurse. I continued to work with families in this capacity in several facilities until starting my practice as a nurse-midwife. ​ In 2014, I completed my nurse-midwifery clinical training at the Midwifery Center at DePaul. After receiving my license and certification, I worked as a full scope nurse-midwife at Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth.