Tosi Marceline
My experience with birth began in 1974 when I started teaching pregnant teens in a special high school setting. Soon I was receiving invitations to give labor support at my students's births. Since many had no partners, or had partners who also needed support, before long I was going to 2-4 births every month in all the hospitals in the Sacramento area, and within a few years was teaching prepared childbirth classes in two Yolo County Teen Parent programs.
In 1976 I began taking midwifery classes at the Holistic Childbirth Institute in San Francisco and taught labor support classes there in 1980. By 1984, I had also become certified as a childbirth educator through the International Childbirth Education Association.
I met Jan McNabb in 1979, when my husband Phil and I needed a midwife. I gave birth at home to our son Miles with Jan's assistance. Two years later Jan asked me to apprentice with her, and after seeing almost 200 hospital births, it was a welcome invitation to make a difference in the way women could experience their births. I continued my work with pregnant teens until 1987, taught private childbirth classes until 1998, attends many conferences and workshops, spent years in self-study, and attended about 30-40 births per year with Jan until 1990, the first 50 as an apprentice and then assuming primary care partnership in 1984. Phil and I gave birth to our daughter Molly Rose in 1984, with Jan's help and care. I went on to train and work with several other partners, and have been working with Claudia Breglia and Rachel Fox-Tierney since 2000.
In 1988, I was one of the first midwives to successfully complete the California Association of Midwives certification program. This certification involved documentation of experience, testing, peer review, and recognition by the International Confederation of Midwives. In 1996, after 6 years of work on passage and implementation of state legislation to license midwives, first as lobbyist and then as chair of the legislative committee of the California Association of Midwives, I received my midwifery license from the Medical Board of California. California's Licensed Midwives (LM) have identical scopes of practice to Certified Nurse Midwives (CNM) and equivalent educational requirements mandated by law. I am certified in neonatal resuscitation by the American Academy of Pediatrics and have IV certification. Additionally, I have earned national certification (Certified Professional Midwife) through the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA).
I have had experience with almost all of the common problems of pregnancy and birth, as well as a few of the not so common ones. I believe that careful attention and watchfulness prevent problems from turning into more dangerous situations in otherwise well-screened and healthy women. The needs of a laboring woman for privacy, supportive care, a sense of security, and the freedom to move and nourish herself are key elements in assuring a normal birth. Continuity of care, individualized care, and a personal relationship between a pregnant woman and her midwife all contribute to the safety of homebirth.
Claudia Breglia
Claudia is no longer attending births with Birthstream. Her new practice can be reached at 916-524-4036
Rachel Fox-Tierney
I am a California Licensed Midwife and Certified Professional Midwife since 2005. I graduated from the National Midwifery Institute (NMI), a three-year MEAC accredited and California Medical Board Approved midwifery program, which was founded by Elizabeth Davis and Shannon Anton. In addition to NMI, I have attended a 10-month Birth Assistant workshop in Rhode Island and a six-day intensive workshop at the Birthwise Midwifery School in Maine. In 1998 I attended my first birth as a doula just days after an ALACE Labor Assistant workshop and knew I had found my calling. I continued to attend births as a doula and in 2000 started my midwifery training with Tosi Marceline and Claudia Breglia. I have been fortunate to be able to gain valuable experience from many wonderful midwives, but also experience midwifery care as a client with both of my pregnancies. My older son was born at home in Connecticut in September 1997, after a long tiring labor that required a great deal of patience from all parties involved. My midwives trusted birth and supported me and my choice to deliver my 9-pound 14-ounce, 23 1/4" long baby at home. My birth would have been very different and possibly surgical if I had chosen to deliver at the local hospital. The confirmation of my strength and validation of my experience helped to prepare me for the joys and challenges of parenthood. My younger son was born in May 2001 with Tosi, Claudia and a student midwife. I labored and gave birth in a birth tub, the warm water was relaxing and gave me mobility that I had not in months!
My personal and professional experience has led me to trust birth and trust the process. Each of us gives birth in our own way because of what we need and who our babies are. It is my responsibility to support birthing women and keep the process within the boundaries of normal and safe, not to manage her experience. I believe babies are active participants in the labor dance and often their birth reflects their personality more than ours. It is always a gift when they are allowed to express them selves through their births in the way they need to. Labor and birth are some of the first moments of parenting when we realize that we are not in control of this new person. We are merely their guides and guardians (and sometimes their students) here on earth. Parenting is a joyous journey full of adventure. It is my hope that when I assist women in their own sacred journey that they discover their own source of strength during the process. I am always honored to attend a woman�s birth and grateful for the opportunity to assist her as she delivers her baby into this world. It is truly a blessed event.