Julie Gorenc, CNM CPM
My path to homebirth midwifery began with my first pregnancy, when I chose to see a nursemidwife and deliver my daughter in a hospital. It was then that I decided to go back to school to become a midwife. Nearly 20 years and many babies later, I have landed where I truly feel I was meant to be, attending families in the peace and safety of their own homes in Lawrence and the surrounding areas, as well as in the KC Metro area.
After working for others for 15 years, my partner, Kara Winkler CNM, and I opened our own practice in order to better provide women with respect and autonomy during their pregnancy, birthing, and postpartum experiences. However, it became increasingly obvious that this just could not occur when birth was planned to be in a hospital setting.
Thankfully, we transitioned our hospital practice to homebirth. We have found that our repeat families, who may not have ever considered homebirth simply because of our culture of birth in the United States, cannot imagine ever delivering in a hospital again. And our first-time families cannot understand why pregnancy and childbirth in our country is viewed as a medical event rather than the normal, physiological, healthy part of life that they are.
As both a CNM (2000) and a CPM (2018), I am proud to be a part of a community that educates on the normalcy of childbirth, the strength of families, and the beauty, safety and peacefulness of homebirth.