My name is Heather Uribe, and I am a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) in the state of Minnesota. CNMs can care for women in pregnancy and birth, as well as across the lifespan as a primary care provider, including well-woman and gynecological visits!
It took a bit to know I wanted to first become a nurse, but I landed on it and ran with it. I attended Northwestern College in Iowa, a small Christian school, and a program that uniquely coupled the art of nursing with the idea of Shalom. We had just one semester of labor & delivery, and it was by no means midwifery (I don’t even recall if there were midwives on the unit, although I suspect not). While I did not have words, let alone coherent thoughts, to describe it, there was something about pregnancy, birth, mothers, and women that captivated me. As a new grad, finding a labor & delivery position proved difficult without experience. Instead, I began my nursing career at a long-term acute care hospital caring for patients on ventilators, with complex wounds, and everything in between. It provided a foundation of nursing knowledge and experience, allowed me to continue to learn well how to build rapport and care for people with great empathy, but it confirmed to me that my passion lay elsewhere.
Midwifery continued to quietly draw my interest, and I had my sights on Frontier Nursing University’s program. In lieu of no labor & delivery experience, which at the time I saw as a detriment, I pursued doula training and got my first taste of pregnancy and birth as a volunteer doula with families planning birth center births. From there, I jumped into Frontier’s program, even then not fully comprehending the different ways there are to become a midwife. Towards the end of the program, my husband and I found out we were pregnant, and while I initially considered a birth center, it dawned on me that a homebirth was truly what made sense and aligned with my values. As I searched for homebirth practices, I found New Birth and quickly became infatuated with Jenny and Sarah! As I got close to finishing my midwifery degree, I birthed my first daughter at home with both of them there. After taking a break from school postpartum, I finished my degree in December 2021.
New Birth Midwifery
Raising my kids is so important to me, but starting as a new midwife anything less than full time wouldn’t happen in most places, not to mention that hospital midwifery does not align with my values. I didn’t feel called to step away from my baby, and I likewise didn’t rush to take my board exam – which I finally took and passed in November 2022, not two months before my second daughter was born at home, this time attended by Taylor and Kris. During all that time, Jenny and Sarah chatted with me about the idea of joining their practice when I felt ready – a huge honor to be considered by women and midwives I adore and so deeply respect. Now the time has come! I cannot fathom a better place and people starting out my career as a midwife.
Although my path to get here has been more drawn out a bit, it allowed me to hone my values and priorities and to continue learning. Our bodies are created to be so innately intelligent, and when given the proper tools (especially through nourishment), our bodies work diligently towards balance and healing. Pregnancy and birth are incredible because they are normal physiological processes – processes that most often function best with minimal intervention and interruption. I have always been health-conscious, but like many, was steered in many unhelpful directions, The more we know, the more we realize we don’t know after all, so I by no means have much figured out. I do know what has helped me to live a more vibrant and nourished life (physically, emotionally, and spiritually nourished, that is), to step more-fully into my role as a woman and wife and mother and now midwife, and to understand the radical responsibility required to make confident decisions for myself and my family without outsourcing decisions to others. It is exciting to me to nudge other women towards exploring these things for themselves, to guide women to discover and step into vibrant, holistic wellness themselves, and what better time than while starting and growing families.
Personal Life
Born in northwest Iowa, we soon moved to Minnesota, and I grew up most of my life in Mound, MN. I went right back to the town where I was born to attend Northwestern College in Iowa for a dual degree in nursing and Spanish. While at Northwestern, I went to Peru to serve as a nurse right after graduating as part of a short-term missions program. There in the jungle in Moyobamba, I met my husband, Ramiro, and we married on the North Shore of Minnesota in 2018. We threw around the idea of living in Peru one day, but a house down the street from my parents that I loved since I was a child went on the market, and although it was not our plan, we went for it. We now live in Mound, have two beautiful and spirited daughters, a cat named Drogo, and my parents just a walk down the street – and it’s all pretty neat.