Not even a pandemic could end this lifelong dream. Going to school while working full time and raising a family didn’t stand in the way either. Some things are just meant to be.
That’s how Naomi Elizabeth Drucker, MSN, CNM, Bridge 138, and Lilit Baldjyan Sarkissian, RN, MSN, CNM, Class 143, felt when they held a grand opening for Los Angeles Midwives on December 16, 2020. The grand opening was virtual, but the building, the practice, the midwives, and their guests were all quite real. It was the fulfillment of a dream that Drucker and Sarkissian shared when they worked together as labor and delivery nurses at Cedars-Sinai Hospital.
“Even when I was a registered nurse, I knew I wanted to be a midwife,” Sarkissian said. “I saw that in Naomi and I saw that in me too. We never officially talked about where we would be today but we jokingly referred to starting our own practice. The reality of it happening sounded too good to be true.”
While they had secured office space in September, the December grand opening event made it all feel real. The event lasted approximately 90 minutes with a large percentage of the 75-plus RSVP’d guests dropping into the virtual event for at least a part of the celebration. Among those in attendance were doulas, nurses, and nurse-midwives. Among the many notable attendees were the President of the California Nurse-Midwives Association and FNU graduate Paris Maloof-Bury, CNM, Class 140; FNU graduate Shadman Habibi, CNM, Class 19, lead CNM with the UCLA Nurse-Midwives; and Kathleen Belzer, the President of the California Nurse-Midwives Foundation. Activities included a virtual tour of the facility, an introduction to the nurse-midwives, and some interactive games and conversations.
“The grand opening raised awareness among other midwives and birth workers so they have a clearer understanding of what we are doing and what we have to offer,” Drucker said.
One of the unique things that Los Angeles Midwives has to offer is in-patient delivering privileges at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, allowing them to provide midwifery care and services to their patients while having their babies in the hospital setting. Drucker and Sarkissian are the first CNM team to have such privileges at the hospital.
“Almost all of our clients come to us instead of another midwife because they know we have access to Cedars,” Drucker said. “For anybody planning an out of hospital birth, it’s very important to have a solid backup plan. We’re the only ones who can offer a seamless transition to the hospital without losing your birth team. That’s very important to all of our clients.”
Equally important to current and prospective clients is the strong reputation that Drucker and Sarkissian carry within the profession.
“Most of our inquiries are coming from a recommendation from doulas,” Sarkissian said. “Word of mouth in this business is so powerful because there’s a trust component. I trust my doula and my doula trusts you, so I’m going to trust you.”
Those connections with doulas and others in the birthing community have been developed over long periods of time. Drucker began her career as a doula 20 years ago and has continued to value and maintain those relationships over the years.
The Los Angeles Midwives recognize the importance of building trust and have established virtual Sunday meet and greets to better get to know their prospective clients. Working in the hospital setting, they saw first-hand the importance of having trust and a healthcare advocate during the birthing process. While working as labor and delivery nurses, Drucker and Sarkissian both took note of things they would do differently if and when they had their own practice. Drucker frequently jokes that she was an undercover midwife working as a labor and delivery nurse.
“There was one midwife at Cedars who had a private practice before we did,” Drucker said. “I would often ask her questions because I knew that down the road that’s what I wanted to do. My biggest concern was leaving a big institution where I get a great paycheck and have benefits. She said that will be the least of your worries. Your biggest worry is going to be finding a partner so you don’t kill yourself with the hours. I gained a lot of confidence from her. There is enough interest for sure, definitely for the special service we are offering that includes access to the hospital.”
Drucker worked independently for the first two years after leaving her nursing job, while Sarkissian took a full-time nursing instructor role at West Coast University (WCU) shortly after passing her national board certification.
“As a labor and delivery nurse, you really get to support these women in labor and help them make decisions and advocate for them,” Sarkissian said. “What drives you to become a midwife is when you see all of this in a medical setting and you can’t help but think to yourself ‘I wouldn’t have done it that way’ or ‘I wish she wasn’t coerced into that decision.’ You want to be in that seat where you’re making those decisions and managing her care. I want to be able to empower these women to be part of their own healthcare decisions. That’s one of the hallmarks of midwifery that we don’t see playing out the majority of the time in a medical setting.”
While Sarkissian was teaching at WCU, and concurrently serving as a clinical instructor at UCLA’s School of Nursing, she remained focused on her mission to join Drucker as a private practice midwife. Drucker guided her through the process of attaining delivering privileges.
“I left my job to get privileges while I taught full time. Naomi guided me throughout the whole thing,” said Sarkissian, who continues to be clinical faculty at UCLA’s School of Nursing. “It’s scary to call doctors and say ‘will you be my backup provider?’ She already had all those conversations. The groundwork was there. Plus, working at Cedars as registered nurses, where we had a working relationship and trust definitely helped.”
The Los Angeles Midwives have hit the ground running, beginning the new year with approximately 20 pregnant patients and 10 postpartum patients. They estimate that about 80 percent of their patients prefer a home birth, but the hospital privileges are a comforting assurance.
“If we need to go to the hospital, I still get to continue to take care of my patient,” Sarkissian said. “With the rest of the great midwives who don’t have these privileges, if there’s a reason to go to the hospital, that care ends because they can’t go with them.”
Drucker estimates that only about 15 percent of the time do they need assistance from their backup provider, who would perform procedures such as C-sections at the hospital. But even in those cases where physician backup is required, Drucker and Sarkissian are still able to be there, actively involved in the care and advocacy of their patients.
That personal connection and care are just as important to the Los Angeles Midwives as they are to their patients. They understand that it is what makes them a success, and it is why they have no immediate plans to expand their business.
“It’s such a personal business and people really do come for us — not just a midwife — they are coming for us in particular,” Drucker said. “I imagine it would change the flavor of our service if we had a team of midwives.”
Both Drucker and Sarkissian are content with the size, scope, and model of their practice. They are quick to thank their families, friends, and colleagues for helping them reach this point. It takes an immeasurable amount of support to be able to work full time, go to school full time, and raise a family all at once. They also credit Frontier Nursing University with playing a key role in making Los Angeles Midwives a reality.
“Frontier has a stellar reputation,” Drucker said. “As far as securing clinical sites and promoting ourselves, people love to know that we went to Frontier. As a working mother of four sons, I worked the night shift through my whole master’s degree and it was doable. I couldn’t have done that with any other program. I’m really grateful. I’m also grateful for the on-campus experience that we had. It was manageable and it allowed us to connect and meet these great midwives who are so passionate about some facets of midwifery that I had never even considered to be important. I think Frontier gave me a great foundation. I’m very proud to let people know that I went to Frontier.”
“I had a baby who was one when I started school and had two other babies while I was in school, also working the night shift,” Sarkissian said. “That ability to be able to go to school and realize my dreams would have not been possible with any other school. That being said, it wasn’t just any online program. I always felt that connection, even though I was thousands of miles away. Frontier has it figured out. They know what it takes to educate students using an online medium but still have that connection. I felt supported and the knowledge that I received and the education that I got were top notch. That was even more clear to me when the pandemic hit and I was an instructor at a university and I had to teach online. I got to use a lot of the things I learned as a student as an instructor.”
“I am extremely proud and honored to have attended Frontier,” Sarkissian continued. “I think as a midwifery school, it is one of the top schools and I can see why they have that reputation. They have it figured out and it’s the right way to do it.”
The same could be said about the Los Angeles Midwives.
Carrie Belin is an experienced board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins DNP program, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Georgetown University School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She has also completed fellowships at Georgetown and the University of California Irvine.
Angie has been a full-scope midwife since 2009. She has experience in various birth settings including home, hospital, and birth centers. She is committed to integrating the midwifery model of care in the US. She completed her master’s degree in nurse-midwifery at Frontier Nursing University (FNU) and her Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves as the midwifery clinical faculty at FNU. Angie is motivated by the desire to improve the quality of healthcare and has led quality improvement projects on skin-to-skin implementation, labor induction, and improving transfer of care practices between hospital and community midwives. In 2017, she created a short film on skin-to-skin called 
Justin C. Daily, BSN, RN, has ten years of experience in nursing. At the start of his nursing career, Justin worked as a floor nurse on the oncology floor at St. Francis. He then spent two years as the Director of Nursing in a small rural Kansas hospital before returning to St. Francis and the oncology unit. He has been in his current position as the Chemo Nurse Educator for the past four years. He earned an Associate in Nurse from Hutchinson Community College and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Bethel College.
Brandy Jackson serves as the Director of Undergraduate Nursing Programs and Assistant Educator at Wichita State University and Co-Director of Access in Nursing. Brandy is a seasoned educator with over 15 years of experience. Before entering academia, Brandy served in Hospital-based leadership and Critical Care Staff nurse roles. Brandy is passionate about equity in nursing education with a focus on individuals with disabilities. Her current research interests include accommodations of nursing students with disabilities in clinical learning environments and breaking down barriers for historically unrepresented individuals to enter the nursing profession. Brandy is also actively engaged in Interprofessional Education development, creating IPE opportunities for faculty and students at Wichita State. Brandy is an active member of Wichita Women for Good and Soroptimist, with the goal to empower women and girls. Brandy is a TeamSTEPPS master trainer. She received the DASIY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty in 2019 at Wichita State University. 
Dr. Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine is an Arab-disabled queer woman of color with a PhD in Nursing and an interdisciplinary certificate in Disability Ethics from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s doctoral research explored spoken word poetry as a form of critical narrative pedagogy to educate nursing students about disability, ableism, and disability justice. Dr. Jamal-Eddine now serves as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in UIC’s Department of Disability and Human Development and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND). During her doctoral program, Sabrina served as a Summer Fellow at a residential National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute at Arizona State University (2023), a summer fellow at Andrew W. Mellon’s National Humanities Without Walls program at University of Michigan (2022), a Summer Research Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute (2021), and an Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) trainee (2019-2020).
Vanessa Cameron works for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nursing Education & Professional Development. She is also attending George Washington University and progressing towards a PhD in Nursing with an emphasis on ableism in nursing. After becoming disabled in April 2021, Vanessa’s worldview and perspective changed, and a recognition of the ableism present within healthcare and within the culture of nursing was apparent. She has been working since that time to provide educational foundations for nurses about disability and ableism, provide support for fellow disabled nursing colleagues, and advocate for the disabled community within healthcare settings to reduce disparities.
Dr. Lucinda Canty is a certified nurse-midwife, Associate Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Seedworks Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Columbia University, a master’s degree from Yale University, specializing in nurse-midwifery, and a PhD from the University of Connecticut. Dr. Canty has provided reproductive health care for over 29 years. Her research interests include the prevention of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, reducing racial and ethnic health disparities in reproductive health, promoting diversity in nursing, and eliminating racism in nursing and midwifery.
Dr. Lisa Meeks is a distinguished scholar and leader whose unwavering commitment to inclusivity and excellence has significantly influenced the landscape of health professions education and accessibility. She is the founder and executive director of the DocsWithDisabilities Initiative and holds appointments as an Associate Professor in the Departments of Learning Health Sciences and Family Medicine at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Nikia Grayson, DNP, MSN, MPH, MA, CNM, FNP-C, FACNM (she/her) is a trailblazing force in reproductive justice, blending her expertise as a public health activist, anthropologist, and family nurse-midwife to champion the rights and health of underserved communities. Graduating with distinction from Howard University, Nikia holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in public health. Her academic journey also led her to the University of Memphis, where she earned a master’s in medical anthropology, and the University of Tennessee, where she achieved both a master’s in nursing and a doctorate in nursing practice. Complementing her extensive education, she completed a post-master’s certificate in midwifery at Frontier Nursing University.
Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices, and student success. McNair directs AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on High-Impact Practices and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers and serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives, including the development of a TRHT-focused campus climate toolkit. She is the lead author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition).