My name is Krista and some of you may already know me from Willow Midwives. I’m excited to be joining forces with Twin Cities Midwifery to be able to continue to offer my postpartum support group, Willow Leaf, to the community.
I’m currently back in school to become a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and plan to graduate this summer. By late summer, I plan to be available for full spectrum care to people assigned female at birth or who identify as female, including mental health support, annual/gyn care, prenatal/postpartum care, and gender affirming care.
My birth journey began before I was even born, with my mother. She was a labor and delivery nurse in the 60s and 70s who saw a darker side of medicalized maternity care firsthand. When she got pregnant, she chose natural childbirth instead and I was raised in that culture. My interest in birth became a passion as my first pregnancy went from low risk to high risk to emergent in a matter of hours and ended far differently from my dreams. Over the following years and subsequent VBACs, the dream of midwifery took root but continued to take a back seat to life. I returned to school for my nursing degree as a second career and went straight into obstetric nursing in a high risk, underserved community in Tennessee. During the 5 years I worked as an LDRP mother/baby nurse I returned to graduate school to continue my dream.
I graduated with my MSN in midwifery and realized two lifelong dreams when I accepted a position in Fairbanks to work in a birth center serving the 500-mile radius of Interior Alaska. Living in the last frontier truly was life changing and highlighted the need for community in the perinatal period. However, the birth center’s eventual closure opened the door for my wife and I to move closer to family and brought us home to the Midwest.
My focus is on trauma informed mental and physiologic care, gender affirming care, and reducing health disparities. I am a member of the American College of Nurse Midwives, American Association of Birth Centers, and Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. I’m married to Sarah, a couples and family therapist who is also a musician and musicology professor. We have two fur babies and three adult children. My favorite things to do are spending time with my family, reading, kayaking, and traveling. I am honored to be a part of each person’s journey in life, and I look forward to continuing to serve families in the Twin Cities area.