We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tiffany Townsend. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tiffany below.

Alright, Tiffany thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the story behind how you got your first job in field that you currently practice in.

As my ex husband and I planned our divorce, I found myself pregnant. Again! This would be baby number 5 for us and I wanted to do things MY WAY. I decided to birth Adayah, my baby girl, at home. As I searched for a midwife who could relate to me culturally, I came up so short. At the time, I was a doula and what I witnessed while supporting my clients in the hospital and reliving my own experiences I knew I had to figure it out. A good friend of mine recommended Yolanda Visser as a great option for me, and she was! A light bulb went off! If I was searching for diversity in my own healthcare, then others are too.

January 7, 2016 Adayah was born and shortly after I enrolled at a Midwifery College in Utah. This program would take me 4-7 years to complete. I started the courses online and had a preceptor locally. It was going well but I knew it wasn’t sustainable for me. I couldn’t afford to not work for 4 years while I finished school. One day I was talking to my preceptor and she asked me if her new contracted midwife could rent a room at my house, immediately I said “Absolutely”! I needed the money desperately. A few weeks later Chloe French moved in and I loved her so. She was so kind to my kids and felt like an extension of my family. We talked a lot and I shared with her that I was considering dropping out because financially I couldn’t afford to finish the program. She insisted that I reconsider and shared information with me about a school called Maternidad La Luz in El Paso, TX. This program was accelerated and would allow me to finish in just 18 months! I was over the moon. So excited that I applied the same day and moved to Texas two weeks later.

Now, if I painted this story like it was rainbows and sunshine, I’d be fooling you. I had my first child at 16 and as an adult I’d never been away from my children. I had to leave them in order to accomplish this goal. It was the hardest choice I have ever had to make. When I made it to Texas, I didn’t even know who I was as a woman, I only knew a mother. For the first three months at Maternidad La Luz (MLL), I cried daily! My kids as much as they loved me didn’t want to sit on FaceTime with me, it got old for them. I made sure I traveled to see them as much as I could, even seeking away when I shouldn’t have.

This experience thought bauble lessons. One of those lessons is that hard things take work and the sacrifice it takes is unknown until you see it through. This is how I entered midwifery and I bring this energy with me to every prenatal visit, every birth and every encounter. I sow up with fiercely genuine love.

Tiffany, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My midwifery practice is called De la Flor Midwifery. In English that translates to “Of the Flower”. My practice is named after My mother, paternal grand mother, and maternal great grand mother. My mother and great grandmother are both named Flor which means flower; and the “De” comes from my fathers mother Dematrice Thompson. I seek to honor those who came before me and contributed to the woman I am today. Ramona Cuello was my abuela, my mothers mother. She was an OBGYN and taught me so much about healthcare as a child. After working long hours at the hospital she would come home to care for the Haitian women in our community in Dominican Republic. They were able to access healthcare and she made sure they got what they needed. Her life drew a beautiful painting in my mind about the beauty of what prenatal care could look like. My mother would send us to DR over the summers to make sure we understood our culture and got to exist in it…. Thanks Mami!

Now, I am a licensed homebirth midwife who took that model of meeting people where they are to provide healthcare that has the ability to change negative birth outcomes and empower clients to actually be informed about their options.

I am most proud that I know that my work contributes to improving the maternal mortality rates for Black women! As a midwife, it exhaust me to hear people continue to paint the narrative that somehow Black bodies just die in birth. It’s time to look at the system and make the necessary changes to improve outcomes.

Overall, my brand is a brand that has been influenced by my Black and Indigenous ancestors and for that I feel so honored. I am honored to carry the knowledge of herbal medicine and some western modalities that allow me to save lives if I need to.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

In order to succeed in this field you need support and a whole lot of grit. As a student midwife, you cannot work outside of school and your apprenticeship. This means that finding ways to make money is extremely difficult. If you dont have support from your community, its almost impossible. This is one of the reasons we dont have a lot of diversity within this field. It’s truly a privilege to even be here practicing today. If my community didn’t buy my books, pay my bills and support me: I wouldn’t be here today. THANK YOU!!!

Can you talk to us about how your funded your firm or practice?

The same community that helped me through midwifery school, also helped me start my practice. I had gofundme to raise capital and amazon list requesting certain things needed to start my practice. It was almost embarrassing but I had to remind myself that the value I’d bring my community was worth the support they gave me! I am truly a community made midwife.

Contact Info:

• Website: delaflormidwifery.com
• Instagram: @delaflormidwifery
• Facebook: @delaflormidwifery

Image Credits
Photos taken by Brittany Carmola Holt