CMI Board
We would love to hear from you:
Brandi Wood, Director – Brandi Wood is a DEM and CPM. She and her husband have three boys (16, 14 & 12) all born with midwives, the last two at home. Brandi has been a midwife since 2001 and has a busy homebirth practice in Central Indiana (www.Home4Birth.com). She resumed Christian Midwives Int. in 2004. She loves teaching and has a heart for bringing Christian midwives together. When we are united in body we can bring more glory to His name.
Edie Wells Conference Registration Coordinator – Edie Wells, CPM and her husband have three children, two of whom were born at home. Edie home schooled all of her children from kindergarten through high school. Edie began practicing midwifery in 1993 in WI. They now reside in Raleigh, NC and Edie recently returned from a Mission trip working with mothers and babies in Haiti.
Lori Luyten, Continuing Education Coordinator - Lori Luyten is a LM and CPM with a ministry-based homebirth and birth center practice. Her heart is for teaching midwifery and dreams that one day there will be a midwife for every pregnant woman in the US. She and her husband have four children and live in Southern California.
Rebekah Knapp, Secretary - Rebekah Knapp, Midwife, has been a midwife since 1998. She trained through the Midwifery Institute of America, has apprenticed with two midwives. She attends conferences to keep her skills sharp. She has taught midwifery in Haiti as well, a country for which she has a burden.
Shonda Parker Membership Development – Shonda Parker CCE, Clinical Herbalist. Shonda’s work with birthing women and their families began in 1989 when she and a friend founded VBAC of Tarrant County, Inc. in FW, Texas to provide education in birth choice for women. She taught childbirth classes, provided herbal medicine consulting services for midwives and their clients, and birthed seven babies as she wrote her books, Naturally Healthy Pregnancy, Mommy Diagnostics, and Naturally Healthy Woman. She developed nineteen pregnancy safe formulas for TriLight Herbs, has consulted with other supplement companies on herbal formulation, and developed her own line of Intimate Solutions oil and bath products and is currently formulating for her Mother’s Choice Botanicals line of supplements. While she oversees the NH Herbalist Training Courses, speaks at various midwifery conferences and women’s events across the country, she now awaits expectantly for the spring ’09 publication of her new book, co-authored with Vickilynn Haycraft of www.realfoodliving.com, Naturally Healthy Cuisine: Real Food for Real Families.
Ireena Keeslar Conference Attendee Services Coordinator Ireena Keeslar CPM began working with birthing women in the hospital setting in 1991 as a nurses assistant. After beccoming a nurse in 1991, she continued to work in OB at two different hospital's until 1997 when she began working at a free standing birth center as a nurse. She became a midwife in 2001. She has a practice in Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan HomeBirthChoices.com She and her husband Scott have 5 grown children and 5 grandchildren. They farm, travel, garden and enjoy their family. Ireena enjoys sewing, gardening, photography, drawing and teaching.
