At age 11, Rowen was exposed to home birth through family friends and proclaimed that she would be a midwife when she grew up, although the real beginning to her midwifery journey was through the pregnancy and birth of her daughter Jasmine in 1996. Yelena was Rowen’s midwife for Jasmine’s birth and was (and continues to be) a true inspiration to move forward on her midwifery path. Already a massage therapist, Rowen’s focus in her practice was toward women in the childbearing year. She began to be asked to attend her client’s births after her doula training in 1998 and started attending births with Yelena in 2001. She has had trainings in prenatal/postpartum yoga, lactation education, and midwifery intensives along with being a Birthing From Within mentor. Rowen has a BA in Women & Sexuality, with an emphasis in Midwifery and Social Activism, and sits on the Board of Directors for Bay Area Birth Information (BABI). She is also the coordinator for the monthly Homebirth Lunch.
Rowen is enrolled in National Midwifery Institute. She recently completed a 2-month internship at Bumi Sehat birth center in Bali, Indonesia. Rowen will be sitting for the CA licensing exam soon and is planning on graduating in the spring of 2012.
Hope Willems
In 1998, after the birth of her second child, Hope began teaching natural childbirth classes and attending births as a doula. In 2004, after the birth of her 4th child, she started to attend home births with various midwives as a midwifery assistant. Hope fell in love with midwifery care and decided to become a midwife, enrolling in National Midwifery Institute in 2007. She began precepting with Yelena in 2008 and completed a 5-week internship at Mercy in Action birth center in the Philippines in 2010. Currently, Hope is enrolled at National Midwifery Institute. She will be sitting for the CA licensing exam in the fall and is planning to graduate in December of 2011.