By: Isabel De Anda
On the surface level, Colleen Forbes appears as your average licensed midwife, with basic midwifery training and experience. Attuned to all things pregnancy, she harbors an extensive knowledge on the home birth process, and provides a charismatic persona to establish trust with every client. She runs her practice, Home Midwifery Care, with the help of Victoria Silvanus, her Assistant Midwife, and has brought twenty years of experience to the mothers of Lane County. Together, the two have helped bring hundreds of children into the world, and provided healthcare services and education to expecting mothers.
However, Forbes’ passion did not develop overnight, and upon close inspection, one would see her experience in midwifery has developed across the world as well as over time. When graduating from University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1989 with a B.A. in Psychology, Colleen never expected she would end up in midwifery. In fact, she started as the supervisor of a feminist women’s health center, and while introduced to the world of women’s choice and body empowerment, she had no clear vision of what she wanted to do. Thus, Colleen elected to leave her career, and volunteer through the Peace Corps in Honduras, offering life skills and sexuality education to the women in her working village. Ultimately, getting to watch Honduran local midwives and oversee labor in her spare time, introduced Colleen to a practice where she could best fulfill her passion of women’s informed choice and self-empowerment.
Forbes returned to the United States soon after Honduras, and began her 4-year apprentice model of training to become a certified direct-entry midwife. She served as an apprentice under the woman who delivered both her children, and worked her way to a partnership in 2001. By 2002, with the guidance of her mentor, Forbes established her own practice. Colleen now provides basic work hours and home appointments throughout the week, and often has her phone on 24 hours a day. As her midwife assistant can attest, “Colleen is a truly a great midwife, especially with how much time she dedicates to women. She really creates a place for mothers to explore their strengths and fears, as well as get answers to their questions”.
Colleen is dedicated to spending the rest of her life sharing her knowledge and experience in women’s healthcare everywhere in which she can reach. Whether it is delivering babies, teaching holistic childbirth classes on home and birth center experiences, or offering nutritional counseling, Colleen says, “I want women to be aware of their options and feel the confidence to enter labor knowing it is to their comfort and preference”. She would like to continue expanding her passion for midwifery, and looks forward to the impact she can make as a Chair on the Board of Licensed Direct-Entry Midwifery and a member of the Oregon Midwifery Council.