Meet Melissa Padgett | Certified Professional Midwife

We had the good fortune of connecting with Melissa Padgett and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Melissa, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
I think the most important factor behind the success of Full Circle Midwifery is the culture of care, inclusion, and support that we strive to maintain among each other as colleagues as well as for our clients. Midwifery is a very specific kind of service that depends heavily on connection and trust. It can take a lot out of a provider to offer that kind of unwavering responsiveness to each family in the vulnerability of their personal childbearing year. To be able to accomplish this for multiple clients at a time, month after month, we really need to lean on each other and provide as well as accept care when we need it. A trusting, honest, and personal relationship with each client is key to the safety and wellbeing of everyone involved in the process of midwifery care in pregnancy and birth. If we are connected to each other and our clients, they feel it. That ensures a high level of satisfaction with the service they have paid us for.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
The path to midwifery for me was one of relationships and personal growth. I began birth work as a doula shortly after my first son was born at home in Birmingham, Alabama in 1995. I felt so empowered by the support and the belief in the normal-ness of birth and my ability to birth my baby I received from my midwife, that I wanted to offer similar care to other women. I believe it is an empowerment that spreads out to other areas of a mother’s life and to those around her. After several years working as a doula and two more of my own babies born at home in the Memphis area, I had a network of close friends and colleagues in the birthing community here. I was offered an apprenticeship with my midwife and dear friend, Martina, in 2009. I worked alongside her and learned from her in a hands on role for about 3 1/2 years and then sat for my NARM exam and became a Certified Professional Midwife licensed in Tennessee. It has been my honor since then to walk alongside hundreds of birthing families and to apprentice a number of midwives into this rewarding career. I believe that birth is a right of passage in each birthing person’s life and for each baby. I want something like this model of care to exist, so I offer it and train others to offer it.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would take a visiting friend to some of the places we have always enjoyed in Memphis like the Brooks Museum of Art and the Dixon Gallery, the Botanical Garden, the Pink Palace museum, the Zoo and the Children’s Museum of Memphis. Some places we would eat would be Otherlands Coffee, Railgarten, Central Barbecue, and Casablanca. Depending on how they felt about crowds, I would make a visit to Beale Street or Graceland with a visitor. Some good outdoor activities would be a hike in Shelby Forrest, playing with kids at Overton Park, and taking in a concert at The Shell amphitheater.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’d love to shout out to my midwife, friend, teacher, and former business partner, Martina Benson. She worked for years as a homebirth midwife in Memphis and now lives and works in San Francisco as a L&D nurse. She has the groundedness, dedication, and warmth it takes to do birthwork and also have a real and joyful personal life. She’s an example for me of that kind of being and doing. And, she is a constant and unwavering friend.

Website: https://www.mwmohismidwife.com

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