ABOUT MIDWIFE CHANDRA
I'm Chandra, a Duluth, Minnesota based community midwife. I’m a certified professional midwife (CPM), licensed traditional midwife, and a former registered nurse (RN). I provide midwifery care from pre-conception through menopause.
My approach to birth is a blend of both evidence-based science & spirit. Birth is physiological, instinctual, and also magical!
I strongly respect each client’s autonomy, innate intelligence, intuition and right to informed choice. Supporting families birthing at home, is a beautiful privilege. But I also know that birth can be deeply meaningful regardless of place of birth or type of birth, complication, or change in the plan when birthing mothers and people are centered and valued as the the experts of their own experience.
Learn more about my approach to birth and how I serve.
My Background
I am a midwife formed both by the story of my birth and my own birth stories. My love for pregnancy, birth, and babies began in childhood. I was born at home during a Minnesota blizzard. As the eldest of six children, I adored hearing the story of my birth and happily carted around my younger siblings. In our house, birth was talked about, simply, joyously, as a part of life.
I carried that love of birth out into the world, and eventually to nursing school, with plans to become a CNM. But, life happened and I ended up working as a nurse in ICU and critical care for about 12 years, (a job I loved for a long time!)
When I became pregnant with our first baby, I chose a hospital midwife group and planned a natural birth. I ended up having a totally unexpected, intervention-filled, and traumatic birth, with postpartum depression to follow. Then, during my pregnancy with our second baby, in the midst of busily researching my homebirth options, we learned that I had a medical complication (complete placenta previa) that meant I would not only have to birth in the hospital again, if it persisted, but that my baby would need to be born by c-section. I had excellent medical care but I was devastated, and I noticed that while my care was technically “perfect”, what I wanted, who I was, and how I (and my baby) felt was mostly invisible and secondary- a fragmented model that focused primarily on the parts it could control, rather than the whole person and family experiencing it.
My children’s births were the seed and root of all that followed; they changed everything! I became determined to fully understand how the unhindered birth process works in our bodies and with our babies and what factors change or affect how it normally unfolds, and how that unfolding has infinite impact on how we birth, parent, partner, and live. And I came back to myself, to memories of my own birth, and into exploring and deepening my inner-knowing.
I started dreaming of midwifery once more and I knew, with a whole heart, that the midwife I was called to be could not exist in the system I had worked and birthed in. In 2005 I started midwifery school and began the very gradual progression towards becoming a CPM. It took me eleven years, several moves, including an international one, with breaks along the way, a shift away from critical care nursing into doula work, many other birth-related trainings, and multiple midwifery apprenticeships. The bulk of my clinical apprenticeship occurred in Austin, TX, where I finally came full-circle, completed my training, and became certified and licensed in 2016.
“Chandra was apprenticing with my midwife during my pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. During my prenatals she was professional yet compassionate. Chandra is a great listener and makes the prenatals not just about having a baby, but about you and your life. During my labor, Chandra was a calm and knowledgeable presence. When I made the decision to transfer, she was understanding and supportive. Lastly, Chandra did one of my postpartum appointments and she helped with everything from calming an upset baby to answering my breastfeeding questions. I would highly recommend Chandra as a midwife...and as a friend."
— JANAE D. 2016
Training & Education
Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) through North American Registry of Midwives (NARM)
Licensed in Texas (2016), Minnesota & Wisconsin (2020)
Intensive 3-year midwifery skills training and apprenticeships across two busy homebirth practices, with three different midwives, in Austin, TX
Concurrent academic midwifery study with Ancient Art Midwifery Institute, as well as focused independent academic study and community group study opportunities
Multiple trainings, classes and workshops with a variety of organizations and teachers including:
Integrative Resuscitation of the Newborn with Karen Strange, CPM
Birth Emergency Skills Training with Andrea Dixon, CNM
Expect the Unexpected: Midwives Handling Complications in Out-of-Hospital Settings with Mercy In Action
Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) certified by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
CPR for Professional Rescuer certified by the American Heart Association
Associate of Science Degree in Nursing, College of St. Catherine (now St. Catherine University), St. Paul, MN
Worked for over 10 years as a Cardiac Care, Cardiovascular ICU, and Medical-Surgical ICU RN, Charge Nurse and Nurse Preceptor in the Twin Cities, MN
Birth Doula, trained with ToLabor (formerly ALACE), in private practice in Minneapolis, MN and Austin, TX (2009-2015)
Member of Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA)
Member of Minnesota Council of Certified Professional Midwives (MCCPM).
Board Member-at-Large & Hearing Screen Program Coordinator (2020-present)
Past Member of Association of Texas Midwives (ATM)
Past member of Minnesota-based The Childbirth Collective and Austin, Texas's Central Texas Doula Association (CTDA)
Chapter Leader of ICAN of the Twin Cities (2004-2007)
ICAN of the Twin Cities Board Member (2009-2012)
Member of the Twin Cities Birth & Baby Expo Planning Committee (2009-2012)
A bit more about me
I've been married to my terrific husband, Bob, for 26 years and am "Mama/Mimi/Mommmm" to my 23-year old daughter, Grayce, and 20-year old son, Owen.
I was born and raised in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. In the past eighteen years, my husband's career has taken our family from Minneapolis to Bangalore, India to Austin, TX where we happily lived for six years before returning to our home state (and my husband's home town of Duluth). Although we all love to travel and experience new places, it feels good to be home and very nice to finally be closer to family.
In my non-midwife-life, I enjoy hanging out with my husband and kids (we’ve primarily homeschooled most of these past years, and as of September 2022, are new empty-nesters with both kids off to college), traveling, hiking and camping, reading, writing, knitting, and doing yoga. You will also find me in the kitchen experimenting with a wide variety of recipes, or in the herb and flower garden, with my hands in the dirt. Like many people who live in Duluth, I am drawn to the fierce beauty of Lake Superior and the landscape of the North Shore.
Prior to becoming a midwife, I had a thriving birth doula practice and before that a career, for over 10 years, as a registered nurse, charge nurse and nurse preceptor, working primarily in critical care. I'm always happy to share more about my journey to midwifery and the paths I chose to get here, so feel free to ask me more.
I currently engage in ongoing study & practice of holistic health and nutrition, herbs and homeopathy and continuing midwifery education. I love both the science and art behind birth and thrill to discovering new research; as well as grounding my practice in lessons learned from my mentors, midwifery history & traditions and the many midwives, mothers, and birthing families who have walked before me. I am also a former International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) leader and have extensive experience supporting women and people interested in cesarean prevention, recovering from cesarean surgery, or planning for a vaginal birth after a previous cesarean (VBAC) and I highly enjoy working with VBAC/HBAC families. I am continually committed to educating the public about the midwifery model of care and the safety and beauty of homebirth for low-risk families.
Meet the Apprentice Midwife
Maria Antonescu has always been fascinated by the amazingness of the human body. She has been a massage therapist for over twenty-two years. For the last ten years, specializing in abdominal massage and pelvic mobility, which led to her working primarily with pregnant and postpartum people. Much of the traditional bodywork during pregnancy, labor and postpartum has been passed down by midwives. By learning bodywork, she was also learning a little midwifery. Over time, her own strong calling to midwifery arose. In 2020 she started assisting at local homebirths and graduated IBMS (Indie Birth Midwifery School) on Mother's Day 2022.
Maria is currently working with Chandra as a birth assistant and apprentice midwife, working on completing her clinical training, (they make a great team!)
She continues her in-home massage practice, along with homeschooling her two children, all the while, continuing to explore the interconnectedness of bodywork and birthwork. Maria has a calm and caring presence, loves learning, is curious like a kitten, and is slowly turning her whole yard into one amazing garden. Find out more about Maria and her work at Massageandmovement.org
