Jackie Griggs, CNM, has been a Nurse Midwife in the Houston area for the past 30 years. She is a mom of 5 grown sons, 3 born at home with the help of midwives. She owns a birth center in Beaumont, Birth Center of Beaumont, and helps with babies at home in Houston and the birth center in Beaumont. She has been on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Birth Centers, until just recently, and still is a very big advocate for midwifery care at a birth center or home, for the women of this country.
Patricia “Trish” Perkins is a Certified Nurse Midwife who began her career as a Labor and Delivery nurse at Jefferson Davis Hospital. She is the mother of 4 children, all brought into this world into the hands of midwives. The first 2 were born in the hospital and the last 2 at home with Pat Jones! After raising her own family, she realized her lifelong dream of studying midwifery. She has worked as a midwife at a free-standing birth center and for Baylor College of Medicine, at The Centers for Children and Women. Her experiences also include working as a Lactation Consultant at St. Joseph’s hospital, helping them achieve Texas Ten Step status. She is now the owner of a beautiful free-standing birth center just north of The Woodlands, Bliss Birth Center. Trish is passionate about providing quality, woman-centered, compassionate care and has the unique knowledge, skills and experience to provide comprehensive, evidence based midwifery care that women deserve.
Dr. Hayes is an OBGYN with an academic background and a passion for science and its proper application to clinical medicine. He has worked for Médecins Sans Frontières and trained in critical care obstetrics. After beginning as a hospital-based obstetrician, he transitioned into a home birth practice in Asheville, NC. Physiologic breech birth and supporting the training of breech birth attendants are particular interests of his. Dr. Hayes left his home birth practice in 2019 to work full-time with Breech Without Borders.
Kristine Lauria, midwife, works for Médecins Sans Frontières and became BWB’s Global Midwifery Director in 2022. She specializes in high-risk maternity care in low-resource environments and is passionate in her support of bodily autonomy in medical decision making and is a staunch advocate for undisturbed, physiologic birth. She has attended over 5000 births in more than 25 countries around the world, among them being over 500 vaginal breech births, including sets of twins and triplets. She is the creator and instructor of BWB’s Master Class on breech & twins, as well as an instructor for the vaginal breech workshops. When she is not doing humanitarian aid, teaching or traveling, she is home in the upper peninsula of Michigan with her pug. She writes about her experiences on her blog, midwifewithoutboundaries.wordpress.com
Gabriela Gerhart was born in a small mountain village in the Czech Republic. She is an entrepreneur,
speaker, author, and the Founder and President of Motherhood Center. She has always loved babies and children and knew from an early age that it would influence her career path. Due to Gabriela’s love of children and helping others, she pursued degrees in both pediatric nursing and physical therapy from 1991-1997. When Gabriela moved to the US she began working as an au pair to four boys, ranging from newborn to elementary age, from 1998-1999.
Gabriela soon noticed there was a void in the market for families of newborns and young children looking to find nannies for their children. She then realized the even greater need – a place where pregnant women and new mothers could go for advice, classes, and support. It was from this realization that Motherhood Center was born in 2000, and it has served more than 40,000 clients and counting since its beginning. Over twenty years have passed and it is still Gabriela’s passion project. She is constantly working to customize the Motherhood Center’s services and working to collaborate with others to best serve mothers and their families in our surrounding community and all over the world. Her goal is to build a cohesive network of support for new parents to turn to – the ultimate village, if you will.
Gabriela is recognized as an expert in the field of pregnancy and early-stage child development. She has
intimate knowledge of the childcare and newborn care industry, as well as in-home staffing (nannies,
family assistants, and newborn care specialists), massage, yoga, and pregnancy education. She recently
launched Motherhood Network which allows families virtual access to the services and classes offered at Motherhood Center. This was a dream of Gabriela’s since she started the Motherhood Center and she is beyond elated to be able to extend support to families across the country and world.
Gabriela is passionate about supporting her community and regularly provides donations of pregnancy
and parenting services and products to countless causes around Houston to assist with fundraising efforts and to better the community as a whole. To name just a few, she has supported the Children’s Museum, Junior League, The Women’s Fund, Crime Stoppers of Houston, L.I.F.E. Houston, and many elementary and preschools in and around Houston.
Gabriela is excited to have recently published her first book titled, “After the Fall,” a memoir in which she shares her journey growing up amidst communism, coming to America, and living the American dream. She now tours the country for book signings and events to share and speak about her unique and inspiring journey. The simple pleasures in life bring Gabriela the most happiness. In her free time, she enjoys golfing, reading, listening to music, phone photography, quality time spent with family and friends, and traveling with her husband.
Rowan became a CPM in January 2019 and has extensive birth center and home birth experience. Prior to earning midwifery boards, they worked as a doula and a birth assistant. They also are a licensed massage therapist with certifications in Arvigo Maya Abdominal Massage, a Spinning Babies Aware Practitioner and is pursuing certification for scar remediation (STREAM). As a trauma informed provider, they are great all around at helping you feel more at home in your body. A co-founder of Preggers Can Be Choosers, all-in-all they have more than 25 years of experience with all things birth and healing. Their side passions are pool crashing, flow arts, and making something from nothing.
Lynn Schulte is a Pelvic Health Physical Therapist for over 30 years, and she is the principle instructor at the Institute for Birth Healing. She has successfully healed thousands of women from all the issues women experience after birth and is now teaching courses to bodyworkers to help them do the same. She found a common birth pattern that shows up in the pelvis after birth and knows how to effectively release these patterns. Knowing we are more than just our bodies, Lynn works on all levels, physically, energetically, and spiritually with women to help them access their full potential. She also teaches bodyworkers how to work with the energy of the body and how to access and use your intuition in your bodywork sessions. She offers a certification process to help birth professionals become Birth Healing Practitioners.
Lynn holds a Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy from St. Louis University, St. Louis Missouri.
Sherry Duson is a Texas and an Arizona Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice, and the Founder and Director of The Center for Postpartum Family Health in Houston and The Woodlands, Texas. Since 1999 she has focused her practice on helping new mothers and the needs of young families. In 2014, she opened the Center for Postpartum Family Health, using therapists training under her supervision, to provide services on a sliding scale to the community. The center is a counseling center specializing in perinatal mental health, addressing all mental, emotional and relational issues related to reproduction. It is a place for all new mothers in Texas to find help, solutions and support. Sherry is a graduate of UH-Clear Lake Family Therapy, and is certified in the perinatal mental health specialty.
Emily Blessinger is an Licensed Professional Counselor Associate who joined The Center for Postpartum Family Health in 2021. Emily comes to CPFH with inspiration from her personal experiences with parenting and motherhood and a desire to help support women and their families through the joys and challenges parenting can bring. Her personal background includes becoming a mother at a later age, and experiencing perinatal loss, which have shaped her perspective and led her to this specialty.
Emily helps lead the weekly online support group for new mothers, and sees clients in person in the Houston office and through teletherapy. She has additional training and certification in EMDR, Perinatal mental health, and couple’s therapy. Emily practices under the supervision of Associate Director, Kim Jones.
Composer/performer/improviser Eden MacAdam-Somer (b. 1979) is one of today’s most exciting and versatile artists. Hailed by the New York Times as reflecting “astonishing virtuosity and raw expression” her music challenges the boundaries of composition and improvisation and transcends genre, weaving in and out of the many cultures that have formed her experience. Eden has written numerous works for solo artist on voice, violin, and body percussion, such as ‘Rumi Songs’, a partially composed, partially improvised song cycle. Her works are performed internationally, and she has received commissions by such groups as the New Gallery Concert Series, Cuatro Puntos Resident Artists, the Providence Mandolin Orchestra, and the AURA Ensemble. Her 2015 live solo album, My First Love Story, was listed as one of the top ten jazz albums of the year in the Boston Globe.
While growing up in Houston, Texas, Eden studied classical music formally, spending her free time at the local folk music sessions and working as an arranger and studio musician. She attended Houston’s High School for Performing and Visual Arts, winning the Music Teacher’s National Association State Division and the Lennox Young Artists Competitions. In 1993, she was introduced to contra-dancing in Amherst, MA, on a night out at Musicorda Chamber Music festival. When she got back to Houston, Eden tracked down the local dance community and began playing for dances. Thanks to the support of the Houston Area Traditional dancers, she was soon brought to the local Irish session, where she connected with members of an international music party band, the Gypsies, who took her under their wing. While earning her undergraduate and graduate degrees in classical violin performance, she was spending nights playing music of all kinds: Balkan, Eastern European, Klezmer, Jazz, Bluegrass, DAWG, and more. Meanwhile, she earned her BM and MM in classical performance from the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, as a student of Fredell Lack, and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, as a student of Kenneth Goldsmith.
Eden is a full-time faculty member at New England Conservatory, where she teaches courses, ensembles, and studio lessons, in addition to serving as Co-Chair of the Department of Contemporary Improvisation. A dynamic and passionate teacher, Eden works with each student to attain the skills they need to become creative and successful artists, strengthening unique personal style with a good foundation in aural skills and technical facility. Outside of the classroom, Eden maintains an active, eclectic international performance and recording career as a soloist and with such bands as Notorious Folk and the Klezmer Conservatory Band. She lives in Boston with her husband, (trombonist, artist manager, and videographer Aaron Hartley) and two children.
Videographer/artist manager Aaron Hartley grew up photographing weddings as a second shooter with his father at Lakeside Photography in Tampa, FL. While attending New England Conservatory of Music for Jazz Performance, Aaron co-created Boston’s legendary Film Noir Series that was featured in Jordan Hall for 15 years, which jump-started his career in videography. Now, Aaron is a full-time videographer and film editor, capturing weddings, concerts, and other events. In his free time, he loves learning new juggling tricks (both clubs and balls), taking care of his flock of chickens, practicing trombone, taking footage of his kids playing, sailing with his brother, Greg, or woodworking.
Aaron and Eden live in Boston with their three children, Gideon (6), Ida Lu (4), and Ori Tov (10 months). As a family, they enjoy baking, hiking, gardening, reading, playing music, dancing, tending their chickens, and exploring the world around them.
Jackie Griggs, CNM, has been a Nurse Midwife in the Houston area for the past 30 years. She is a mom to 5 sons, 3 born at home with the help of midwives. She owns two birth centers, one in the Houston Heights and one in Beaumont. She helps with babies at home and birth center. She is also on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Birth Centers.
Patricia “Trish” Perkins is a Certified Nurse Midwife who began her career as a Labor and Delivery nurse at Jefferson Davis Hospital. She is the mother of 4 children, all brought into this world into the hands of midwives. The first two were born in the hospital and the last 2 at home with Pat Jones!! After raising her own family, she realized her lifelong dream of studying midwifery. She has worked as a midwife at a free-standing birth center and for Baylor College of Medicine, at The Centers for Children and Women. Her experiences also include working as a Lactation Consultant at St Joseph’s hospital, helping them achieve Texas Ten Step status. She is now the owner of a beautiful free-standing birth center just north of the Woodlands, – Bliss Birth Center -. Trish is passionate about providing quality, women-centered, compassionate care and has the unique knowledge, skills and experience to provide comprehensive, evidence based midwifery care that women deserve.
