Midwife
Birth Worker
Are you looking for inclusive, whole-person-centered care and a provider with friendly, honest, open energy?
Hi, I’m Brandy, she/her, owner of Willow Birth Services.
I live in N. Oklahoma City, and I’ve been proudly serving Oklahoma families as a Birth Worker since 2007.
In addition to my experience serving the OKC area for the last 18 + years, I believe my own birthing experiences give me a unique perspective.
Let me share my story with you.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a love of pregnancy, birth, and babies.
In my early 20s, I was ready to start my own family. I began looking at all of the available choices in the birthing community.
This led me to begin my training as a certified birth doula, and I fell in love with supporting families through the most intimate experience of their lives - giving birth.
Meanwhile, my spouse and I faced years of infertility, pregnancy losses and frustration.
For many years we tried on our own to get pregnant before we eventually decided to do in vitro fertilization or IVF.
Then, in 2009, I became pregnant with my oldest twin boys, Dryden and Tanner. We were over the moon excited!
With the help of our own Birth Doula, Certified Nurse Midwife, and HypnoBirthing® techniques, I had an unmedicated, vaginal, hospital birth. It was one of the most challenging yet rewarding experiences of my life.
Shortly after the birth of my oldest boys, I became a certified breastfeeding educator and HypnoBirthing® Instructor.
My goal was to add to the choices in childbirth education in the
Oklahoma City area and help families experience gentle,
fear-free, family-centered birthing in ANY environment.
As a HypnoBirthing® educator for over 7 years, I was able to successfully help hundreds of OKC families achieve their birthing goals.
At home, my spouse and I continued the pursuit of growing our family. More than once, we were faced with the devastation of pregnancy loss.
Then, six and a half years after our first set of twins, we got the news we’d been waiting for. We were pregnant again from a successful frozen embryo transfer...
with our second set of twins!
Once again, this news brought excitement, and honestly, a little bit of apprehension because of our experiences with loss. In 2016, our second set of twins, Dash and Everly were born… at home.
In 2015, just before this pregnancy occurred, I was accepted into Midwives College of Utah and begun my work as a Student Midwife. I was incredibly lucky to learn and still learn from both CPMs and a CNM in the community. That education and time they spent with me, lets be honest, still spend with me, I will forever be grateful for. I was challenged and grown through both the beauty and grit of that time as a student.
Because of the work I’d been doing on myself, healing from previous trauma and my birth experience, I chose to birth at home. I needed the intimacy and safety of our home. Making these babies was so meticulously involved and not the level of intimate I so very much desired. I needed to shift to “low tech.”
I felt more confident and understood what my body was capable of. Even if we could not make a baby, we could sure birth them!
The experience of birthing at home was very rewarding and healing,
and I was surrounded by my midwives, birth assistants, doulas,
and close friends. I felt loved. I felt cared for. I felt like I mattered.
Then, in the GREATEST PLOT TWIST of my life,
I unexpectedly became pregnant again.
After over a decade of infertility and pregnancy loss, we were shocked to say the least. The feelings of joy and excitement I’d imagined would be if a miracle were to occur, didn’t happen. I struggled to accept the news.
To be totally honest, I was in my Sr. year of midwifery school, I had my hands full with 4 kids at home, I was burning the candle at both ends and I was MAD. I couldn’t stop, or slow down, especially now…..
As Ellarie grew, so did my joy about this miracle. She became “Magic Baby.”
In July of 2019, she too, was home-born into my hands in the most beautiful, perfect & swift way. Her birth officially closes a chapter in our lives, and we could not be more grateful to our Creator for such a blessing and to our Midwife & support team for our exceptional care. As you can imagine, she’s the light and love of our lives. She is The Creator’s work in the flesh.
After Ellarie’s birth, I completed my Midwifery Degree program and have been offering Midwifery services since 2020 in the Oklahoma City community. March of 2021, Taryn, my business partner and I opened OKC’s first & only birth center. We poured our sweat, tears, blood, time and capital into our little dream project and we are SO proud. You can read more about our birth center here.
Note: While all didactic, clinical, and birth requirements for graduation have been completed, I have purposefully chosen to delay my graduation paperwork, testing and licensure due to significant, traumatic, life-altering, events shortly before the birth of Magic Baby. As I continue to heal and receive therapies to improve areas of concern for me, I am always happy to answer questions and address concerns potential or current clients have regarding my educational and state licensing plans.
Brandy & Taryn at the OKC Birth Center.
I feel that ALL my birth experiences have been a gift.
As a midwife, I’m able to support families through the beautiful and challenging moments that occur during pregnancy, labor, birth, and postpartum.
My Midwifery Values
Evidence-Based Care
In my opinion, evidence-based, informed care is one of the cornerstones of true midwifery care.
Together, we discuss what the evidence shows us, talk about it and the most common, local practices and look at ALL our information & guidelines, add your wants, needs & yes, your opinion. From there, you have what you need to formulate THE BEST decisions for yourself, your pregnancy and the baby you are carrying as we walk through this journey together.
Shared Decision Making
My goal as a provider is to not only propagate and cultivate trust, but to grow that trust.
If you have had a past experiences with providers that left you lacking trust, feeling guarded or possibly traumatized, my hope is that healing can continue while we work together through this NEW journey. Your Midwife should be a beacon of safety and a wealth of knowledge.
I define The Midwife and The Client relationship as two experts coming together for a common cause. Experts? Yes. You, on your body & baby; the truest, most complete YOU there is, and me, as a Midwife who’s expertise, education & experiences regarding normal, healthy pregnancy, labor, birthing and newborns.
Autonomy
Through the process of shared decision-making, comes informed consent and informed refusal as apart of high-quality, comprehensive care during all life seasons.
Your autonomy is incredibly important, and as a midwife, I strive to help you frame your autonomy in both physically and emotionally safe ways. Caring for your pregnancy, labor and birthing that are appropriate for your specific circumstances.
Interested in talking further to see if Willow Birth Services is right for you? Book a free consult here.
Training and Education
September 2021 Breech Without Boarders Workshop
January 2015-2019 Midwifery Degree Program (Midwives College of Utah)
January 2014 Midwifery Asst. Program (Birth Arts Intl.)
November 2013 Birth Emergency Skills Training (B.E.S.T)Facilitated by: Andrea Dixon, RN, CNM
November 2013 “Big Babies” Class via Evidence-Based Birth.com
Essential Oils for Pregnancy, Labor and Birth (Class)
T.E.N.S Unit Training 2013 with Karen Palumbo
WIC Breastfeeding Symposium 2007, 2009, 2013
Certified Breastfeeding Educators Course (CBE) 2010, 2013, 2016 with Debi Bocar
HypnoBirthing Certified Practitioner 2011-2018
Neonatal Resuscitation Certification (NRP) with Mary Friedlein (current)
Healthcare Provider CPR Certification with Mary Friedlein (current)
Certified Birth Doula 2007, 2010
DONA International Doula Training 2002, 2007
Pre-Nursing Curriculum at OSU-OKC 2005-2010