Grace Flannery, CPM, LM
Certified Professional Midwife, Licensed Midwife (she/her)
For me, the art of midwifery is a dance rooted in sincere relationships, weaving in a blend of age-old wisdom and current research evidence. Like countless midwives before me, my commitment to this work comes from my deepest core and is informed by my varied experiences in both birth and life.
My calling to midwifery came early and without the context to recognize it, I first understood it as a simple and profound love for people. I’ve tended this love, nurturing my capacity to care from a place of acceptance and respect for each person's humanity, cherishing their unique personhood. In early 2015, someone asked me to complete a doula training so I could support them at their birth. We were a team of two - single parent and doula - and this experience transformed my life. I finally understood. I am a midwife.
After some time working as a doula, I entered midwifery school in March 2017. While training, I worked full-time as a birth assistant at Willow Midwives Birth Center in Minneapolis, which is also where I completed the bulk of my clinical internships as a midwifery student. This high-volume environment allowed me to experience hundreds of births, learn from numerous midwives and develop a very strong clinical skill set. Emme and I began attending births together in February 2020 and I formally joined Trillium as Emme’s new midwife partner in October 2020.
As a community midwife, I am devoted to offering midwifery care which is inclusive, highly personalized, and responsive. By fostering resilience and flexibility in myself, I am able to receive my clients for who they are and tailor my midwifery care accordingly.
I see real power in the way we offer community midwifery care. In our model, we emphasize autonomy, loving trust, consistent presence, and thorough education. We accomplish this by giving adequate space and time for understanding, integration and grounded decision-making to happen each step of the way.
With hour-long prenatals and frequent postpartum visits there's room for learning, family, dreaming, process, even play and fun. My hope is that this model of care will allow clients to deepen their relationship with themselves and each other, which carries through their birthing time and out into their life.
Additionally, my training as a healthcare interpreter and board-certified phlebotomist activates when we need to access hospital or OB care. In this situation, my role expands to include the function of “cultural interpreter,” facilitating the community midwifery model of care in an institutional setting. Our healthcare system is a whole culture with language, norms and expectations wrapped inside. In order to successfully navigate it, we have to understand this crucial reality. During times of hospital transfer, I aim to help everyone in the birthing space communicate effectively together and build a collaborative feeling of teamwork. As a team, we're working to meet the birthing family's needs while navigating the healthcare system in which we all find ourselves. This includes the hospital staff! My belief is that this approach results in increased positive experience for everyone, even when things have not gone according to plan.
I am a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM), Licensed Traditional Midwife (LTM) licensed by the Minnesota State Board of Medical Practice, and carry certifications in Neonatal Resuscitation (NRP) and Adult and Infant CPR (BLS). I am an active member of the Minnesota Council of Certified Professional Midwives, as well as the Childbirth Collective and the Sweet Water Alliance of the Oshun Center for Intercultural Healing.
My partner Ian and I live blissfully surrounded by nature in Bloomington. I love paddleboarding or kayaking on Bush Lake and going for long long walks on the trails in the Hyland Park Reserve. I thrive by escaping for hours into an epic fantasy novel, playing D&D, and being a real big nerd. I love world history, and I’m interested to learn anything and everything about how humans have lived throughout place and time. I run a “plant hospital” for stricken and neglected houseplants and have great success rehabbing them back to happiness. The practices and daily routines of Ayurveda keep me balanced and well. These are the things that make me happy.
