Christy’s love for working with childbearing families came unexpectedly while she was completing her training as a nurse.  For her preceptorship, she worked with a CNM (certified nurse-midwife) in a homebirth practice and first shared in the amazing experience of helping women labor and birth in the safety and comfort of their own homes, surrounded by chosen and trusted people, and without unnecessary interventions.  These experiences provided a strong foundation for understanding that pregnancy and birth are normal, healthy processes, and that midwifery care provides women and their families with excellent care.

Before pursuing her midwifery training, Christy worked as a Registered Nurse for 4 ½ years, a year and a half of which were spent in labor, delivery, and postpartum, as well as in the newborn nursery.  While working in the hospital, Christy attended women and their families in a variety of situations including natural and medicated labors, and vaginal and cesarean births.  During these years she also provided labor support for several close friends and continued to develop her passion, skills, and heart for serving women during pregnancy, birth, and afterwards.

In 2004, when the time finally came for Christy to start her midwifery training, she chose a program that focused on another one of her passions: serving in developing countries.  She spent 15 months at Mercy in Action Maternity Center in Manila, Philippines, providing free maternity services to impoverished women and their families in a large urban slum area.  During Christy’s time at Mercy in Action, over 1000 babies were born at their birth center. 

Christy’s heart for the developing world and for serving women has also taken her to Tanzania, East Africa where she served for a few weeks in rural clinic.  During her time in Tanzania, she worked alongside Tanzanian midwives, doctors, and nurses providing prenatal care and delivering babies.   Also while there, Christy taught a maternal-newborn health class for a group of primary healthcare students from 6 different countries.

In August 2006, Christy graduated from Mercy in Action Midwifery School and the National College of Midwifery.  She took and passed the licensure exam given by the North American Registry of Midwives, therefore making her a Certified Professional Midwife.

Christy moved from Arkansas to Fort Worth, Texas to be a staff midwife at Gentle Beginnings Birth Center which opened its doors in 2007 as the only birth center in Tarrant County.  Her desire is to help women and their families have healthy pregnancies and rewarding birth experiences through providing education, preventative care, personalized attention, and skilled hands.