Let me introduce myself. My name is Carla Hartley. I founded this program as Apprentice Academics in 1981 when I lived in Spring Texas. In late 1980 I started work on a preliminary academic program for women who wanted to apprentice with me. My program included a workbook and six months of weekly classroom intensives. Before I became a midwife, I had really concentrated on the academics and had been teaching childbirth classes for a while so this was a logical thing for me to do for apprentices. However, I was convinced by midwives and others in the childbirth field that I should develop it further so that what I had created could become a correspondence course— in order to help more women become midwives. It took a LOT of convincing. I did not want to do it! But here I am 23 years later and I still do it for the reason that convinced me in the first place— to help more women become midwives!
For the first ten years I did almost every aspect of the business alone, but in the early 90s student and graduate volunteers started helping me. Now I don't know how I could do this without them. They are brilliant and generous women who want the same thing I do: more midwives!!!!
On the personal side:
I have been married to my high school sweetheart, Ray for 33 years and am the mother of 4, 3 of those home born and the grandmother of 4, 3 of those home born. My grandchildren call me Baba.
My grandmother was a midwife and caught me in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. I witnessed my first home birth 14 months later as my sister was born....but I didn't know anything about birth until AFTER my first was born in the hospital. That's a story for another time!

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