I’ve always known I was meant to do something meaningful with my life. I’ve known that since I was a little girl. It’s something that actually caused me a lot of anguish growing up and into my young adult years, because I knew I was supposed to be doing something important—I just couldn’t figure out what.

I grew up watching my mom count down the days until her retirement. She did that for over 20 years. She was miserable, and I knew I didn’t want that for myself. I would often say, “I want to do something I’m passionate about!” which came with laughter from some people, because “passion doesn’t pay the bills.”

It’s funny to look back on now, because the signs were always in front of me, but for so long, I dismissed them. I thought that if I wanted to do anything in the realm of pregnancy, I would have to become a nurse. As much as I love all the nurses in my life, that just wasn’t something I felt interested in.

I can remember being a young child and feeling so connected to pregnant women, even then. It sounds weird to say, but I was just drawn to them and thought it was so beautiful. I spent many days watching A Baby Story on TV, and throughout high school, I was part of an online birth community because I just loved all things birth—even then.

I remember being in elementary school when they had the “puberty talk” day, and I was the weirdo who enjoyed it. I always loved when the counselor came in to talk to the class. I also really enjoyed health class in middle school, child development in high school, and nutrition in college—all of which are fundamental parts of midwifery.

But I didn’t know about midwifery—at least not in the United States. I had heard about it in other countries, but I didn’t realize it was something that was a choice here. Everyone I knew went to a doctor and had babies at the hospital. It wasn’t until I was pregnant with my first child that I would ever hear the words home birth midwife.

My daughter’s birth did not happen the way I expected it to. I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was, and when I went into labor with her, the birth happened to me. What I mean by that is, I didn’t know my options—and I wasn’t informed of them either. I ended up receiving medication that caused me to be so out of it that I don’t remember much of anything about her birth, and that broke my heart for years. Becoming a mom was something I had looked forward to my entire life, and I couldn’t even remember hearing her first cries.

A fire was lit inside me that day, but it wouldn’t be until a decade later that I knew where I would go with it.

When she was two, I began my training to become a doula. The person teaching the class was a home birth midwife. She came to me later and asked me to be her student and become a midwife too. I was a 23-year-old single mom—I knew I couldn’t make it work. But the idea never left me. We made plans to meet up two or three different times over the years to see if we could make things work, but the timing was never quite right.

I was heavily pregnant in 2020 when the world shut down. When everything had closed and canceled, and they were talking about taking babies who tested positive and not letting husbands join for births. Just a few weeks away from my due date, I messaged that same midwife and asked her to deliver my baby at home. I had always been an advocate for home birth, but I didn’t ever think I would have one.

Three weeks later, I had my baby boy on the bathroom floor of my childhood home. From then on, birth was my focus. The fire came back. I knew I had finally landed on what I had been searching for for so long, and I couldn’t suppress it anymore.

It took another year and a half, but that midwife finally became my teacher, and I began my apprenticeship in December of 2021. Since 2021, I’ve had the honor of witnessing many families welcome their babies into the world. I’ve laughed with them and cried with them. I’ve caught their babies, and I’ve helped them catch their babies.

I still have a hard time believing that this is my life, but it all makes sense now. It all unfolded the way it was supposed to.

As it turns out, the birth of my daughter—which hurt for so long—was the catalyst to finding that meaningful thing I was supposed to do. And my son’s birth showed me that I had the strength to make it happen.