Meet Victoria Mayfield, CNM

We are pleased to introduce you to Victoria Mayfield, 

the Birth Center's newest midwife.

Welcome Victoria! We are so glad you are here!

What inspired you to become a midwife?
I was born at home, as were all of my siblings. This meant that I grew up thinking it was normal for all women to have natural labor and for babies to be born at home. Also, the midwife who delivered me was also my dance teacher (from ages 2-16), so needless to say I thought she had the best life ever. Dancer by day and baby catcher by night. What could be better!?

As I grew up, my eyes widened to the "real world" and I was sure that I'd go to medical school. Being a doctor would be most fitting for my math and sciency brain, and my type-A personality. Again, what could be better!? Well, what was better was one day waking up to realize that the perfect melding between my, for lack of a better term, "hippie," "birth is normal" upbringing and my motivation to work in healthcare was nurse-midwifery. I fundamentally believe that the foundation to a healthy life begins in the womb, and even for some women, it can begin with a pregnancy. I also have seen that healthy communities are rooted in healthy birth. This has inspired me, as these principles have inspired me to be where I am today, doing what I love to do!

Can you tell us a bit about your own family? 
My long-term partner and I do not have any kids yet, but we do have a cat baby. I tell him all the time that I love that cat more than I ever thought I could ever love a non-human... It gets me daydreaming about how insanely wonderful it will feel to one day love a human child more than I ever imagined was possible! Some day....

Otherwise, my family is big and wonderful. I have 3 full siblings: a sister who is a super smart fish biologist, a brother who is a bearded brewer for Ordnance Brewing (check them out!), and a younger sister (and best friend) who works with at-risk high schoolers and is an amazing runner (winner of this year's Eugene Marathon!). My mom and little brother live in Ashland. He is 10, and was born when I was in high school (did I give away my age?). Ezra is wonderful and one of the best "mistakes" to happen to our family; he's this amazing little mini-adult. Having a newborn in the house when my siblings and I were at such a formative age served as good birth control, but it also made me fall even more in love with small humans! All my siblings were all at his birth. My Dad is a FNP who is currently living on the Oregon Coast.

What are your favorite things about providing care at the Birth Center?
I LOVE meeting families, and especially the families that have a rich history with the midwives in this practice. It's wonderful and special to be at births where a sibling who was born into the same space or to another midwife is present. It's humbling to feel that I have walked into this place that is a fixture in so many people's lives, and to feel welcomed and embraced. This place is a family in its own right. I also LOVE being with women who face labor with bravery and determination, and being with women who hold on to keeping birth sacred and normal. I am constantly in awe of a woman's strength!

What can you share with us that we may not already know?
I'm a knitter and quilter. My preferred project is baby hats! I make them all the time to have on hand to give away! I've been running my whole life; I'm mostly into ultra-distance trail running. This summer I have two 50k's planned. A fun bragging right I have is that I was team captain of our state championship cross country team in high school. I went to Willamette University and studied Exercise Science, so that may be considered my area of interest in pregnancy. Shortly after, I attended OHSU for my BSN and Masters of Nursing, Nurse-Midwifery. Prior to working in this field, I worked at Crater Lake clearing and building trails for the Park Service for 6 seasons!

Welcome Anne Richards, CNM, to the Birth Center!

We are pleased to introduce you to Anne Richards, 

the Birth Center's newest midwife.

Welcome Anne! We are so glad you are here!

How long have you been working at the Birth Center?

            I am the newest midwife at the Birth Center, having joined the team just about six months ago, in late June. I graduated from Vanderbilt University’s midwifery program in December 2013, but was living in Eugene prior to attending graduate school in Nashville, so I already knew about the practice. Every day I feel so lucky to have been asked to join this incredible group; everyone at the Birth Center has welcomed me with open arms and taken me under their (awesomely knowledgeable and supportive) wings – I am so very grateful for that!

Tell us a little about your path to the Birth Center.

            It seems everyone in my life knew I was supposed to be a midwife before I did! I have always been fascinated with pregnancy and birth, but I honestly didn’t think I could transform that passion into my life’s work. My Dad is a journalist, my Mom is a business consultant, my brother is pursuing a career in film; being an obstetrics care provider simply wasn’t on my radar growing up. That said, my brother is eight years younger than I am and I vividly recall nearly everything about my Mom’s pregnancy with him; I was desperate to attend my Mom’s prenatal appointments and literally begged her to allow me to be present at the birth (my parents deemed me too young). I was ravenous for information related to pregnancy, labor, and delivery, even in the second grade.

            I received my undergraduate degree in nutrition from UC Berkeley in 2007. For several years following graduation, I worked in the field of clinical dietetics at a San Francisco Bay Area hospital. At every opportunity, I found myself trying to get under the service of the Registered Dietitian assigned to the hospital’s antepartum unit; she spent her days working with pregnant women who were hospitalized for gestational diabetes, hypertension, etc. She is the one who told me, “I think you’re meant to work in labor and delivery.” So, on her urging, I trained and then volunteered as a doula for several years at a San Francisco county hospital. Witnessing that first birth was it for me – I never again contemplated another field. I was lucky enough to support women whose labors and births were overwhelmingly attended by the hospital’s Certified Nurse-Midwives and the Student Nurse-Midwives of UCSF; working with them made me realize that I wanted – and needed – to become a midwife.

           

What do you enjoy most about working at the Birth Center?

            Everything! For one, the opportunity to attend both out-of-hospital and in-hospital births is an incredible (and rare) blessing; it’s amazing that our practice can also offer that choice to our patients. Additionally, I love that I get to work with women and families who specifically seek out midwifery care; at the practices with which I trained as a Student Nurse-Midwife, low-risk patients were automatically assigned to the midwives and higher-risk patients were automatically assigned to the obstetricians, which wasn’t always ideal. At the Birth Center and in this community in general, there is so much respect for and trust in the training that midwives have and our expertise in managing healthy, low-risk pregnancies and deliveries. I am so appreciative of that respect and trust.

What is one thing about you that might surprise people?

            As a fairly new Certified Nurse-Midwife, everything in my life seems to be focused on midwifery right now! Possibly it would surprise people that I am a newlywed? My husband and I just got married in September. We together moved to Oregon from California for his job four years ago, but soon thereafter endured a long-distance relationship while I attended midwifery school in Nashville. He’s an air traffic controller, so we both work varied schedules. When he’s not directing airplanes and I’m not catching babies, we indulge in one of our truest passions – delicious food and drink. We have loved together experiencing Eugene’s burgeoning restaurant scene! We also make the trek to Portland more often that I would like to admit simply to indulge our many culinary cravings.