Methow Midwifery Staff Bios
Midwives:
Blue Bradley is a CNM and the owner of Methow Midwifery & Women’s Health. Born in Colorado, she moved to the Methow in 1995 and worked at every bakery and restaurant before going back to school.
She has wanted to be a midwife since 1999 when she took a birth doula training, and learned about the inadequacies of the mainstream system that cares for birthing women.
Her RN degree was achieved in Omak and she worked at The Country Clinic in Winthrop (rural Family Practice) for 6 years. In 2008, she graduated from the Frontier School of Midwifery & Family Nursing with a Master's degree in Midwifery and opened Methow Midwifery in October of 2008.
Her wonderfully supportive husband, Larry, owns North Cascades Mountain Guides and is an avid climber, back country skier, and avalanche instructor. He takes Blue on many adventures when she is not waiting for babies to be born. Together, with their dog Scooby, they live in Mazama.
Birth Assistants:
Sarah Berns grew up in Massachusetts and came "out west" to the Methow Valley in 1995 to work for the Forest Service. While studying film and sociology at Wesleyan University in CT, she continued to fight fire during the summers. After working in the film industry in LA, she moved back to the Methow to pursue her fire career, and dream of Smokejumping. While smokejumping, she married fellow jumper, Daren Belsby, and had a daughter, Ayla in November of '05. It was this pivotal life experience (induction and ultimate C/section) that led Sarah to become active in the birthing community. In addition to completing EMT-B training in '99, she took a birth doula class in 2008 and went on to have a glorious VBAC, with Blue in attendance, January of '09 (Maeve). She is thrilled to have the opportunity to work for Blue and to help provide an extremely important service to local women. Together with Daren, Sarah also runs a local lodging facility, Spring Creek Ranch, in Winthrop.
Allison DeLong came to the valley from northern Idaho with her husband, Pete, and two children, Taya and Ian. They have lived in Mazama since 2005. Allison has a real passion for the birth experience, especially
homebirths. Her first pregnancy and birth was through doctors in a hospital setting. While she was able to have a "natural" birth within a hospital setting, she still found the experience, prenatal visits included, to be fairly invasive and less than ideal for this precious time. In contrast, her next pregnancy and birth was with midwives. The whole experience was markedly more relaxed and more connected. Her son was born at home and she and her husband were grateful for this much richer experience, supported by wonderful midwives, that allowed the experience to simply unfold, naturally. Allison is excited to be able to support other women in experiencing such a birth. She is trained and certified in Neonatal Resuscitation. Allison also has a B.A. degree in Psychology and is fascinated with the mind and body connection. She enjoys working with children, volunteering often at the elementary school and also coaching for the junior nordic ski team. Her other passions include backpacking, skiing, gardening, playing music, practicing yoga, and being barefoot in high mountain meadows.
Tory DeSalvo is a birth assistant and owner of Cascade Cobbler with her husband, James. She is also the mother of Malloch and Sawyer. As a Nursing Assistant (since '05) and a Birth Doula (since '04), Tory has always
been interested in the human body and her own experiences with pregnancy, having children, and the postpartum period, have drawn her to Methow Midwifery & Women's Health.
Tory brings a wide range of experiences to this practice through her education in Women's Health, work at Overlake OBGyn, University level nursing courses and years of hospital volunteering. Like many in the Methow, Tory spend her free time enjoying the trails of the here, either on foot or skis, and often with a child in tow. Tory and her husband James make their home in Mazama.
Karissa Mclean was born and raised in Twisp. Always interested in social services, she studied Community Health at Western Washington University. She completed an internship in Oaxaca, Mexico for an organization which provided nutrition education in rural Oaxacan communities. After college Karissa spent two years in Mississippi. For the first year she was working with a disaster recovery organization to rebuild homes and parks in low income communities after Hurricane Katrina. In her second year, Karissa developed a training program to help women enter the construction trades. After half a year of traveling in New Zealand, she returned home to work for Room One in the summer of 2009. Karissa’s work and travel experience have made her acutely aware of the importance of quality respectful healthcare. It was this awareness that lead her to be one of Blue’s home birth assistants. Karissa is also certified in Neonatal Resuscitation.
While a student at The Evergreen State College 18 years ago, Kelleigh McMillan had the experience and education of living with a pregnant mom and attending her homebirth, which began her passion for natural birth. Over the years she has had the honor of attending friends' homebirths and gratefully had her two babies at home, now ages 5 and 8. Kelleigh has worked as an organic vegetable grower for the past 16 years and currently directs a program which grows and distributes free produce to low-income families in the Methow Valley. She also worked as a First Responder and an E.M.T. for several years, and is now trained as a birth Doula and Home Birth Assistant. She is grateful that there is now a wonderful homebirth option to all women in the (county/valley) through Methow Midwifery and Blue's dedication, and considers each birth a blessed way to start a new life. She makes her home with her husband Paul and children Lazo and Stella near Twisp.
Kim Odell lives near Twisp and has been a valley resident since 1995. Her career in childbirth began ten years
ago when she joined "Mothering through Breastfeeding," a newly formed, local mother's group. After an assisted hospital water birth with her first daughter, she facilitated the group for almost three years. The group discussed and supported each other on issues such as birth choices, vaccines, sleep options, and breast feeding. After a natural hospital birth of her second daughter, she turned to home schooling. She decided to go a step deeper into the birthing world and became a birth doula through Seattle Midwifery School and began acting as a home birth assistant for Blue after the wonderful home birth of her son. She became certified in Neonatal Resuscitation during that time. She has attended a variety of beautiful home births and relishes each experience as a tender and magical time.
Becky Studen: A transplant from New England, Becky Studen has lived in the Methow Valley most of her adult life. She worked as a biologist and educator for the U.S. Forest Service for 12 years before joining her husband Aaron in running their family business in 2007. In 2000, Becky gave birth to her first son, Simon, with great support from family, a doula (Blue Bradley), many nurses and hospital staff, and now retired midwife, Sheryl Smith. It was a long labor. Needing empathy and support for the new challenges that motherhood and breastfeeding brought, Becky joined the “Mothering Through Breastfeeding” support group (now known as Room One's “Mothering Group”). She greatly enjoyed the support, information, and community that the Mothering Group provided for several years and became a facilitator of the group from 2003 to 2005 . In 2006 Becky gave birth to her daughter Gabby with lots of support again, and thankfully a much shorter labor. Believing in and supporting the natural process of birth has been a passion for Becky. In 2008 she was certified in Neonatal Resuscitation and also became a certified yoga instructor with an emphasis on prenatal and children's yoga.
Methow Midwifery & Women's Health
214 N. Glover Street, PO Box 503
North Glover Healing Center,
Twisp, WA 98856
Ph 509-341-4256 ~ Fax 888-361-9674
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