As midwives in Minnesota, we have long stood at the frontlines of the fight for reproductive justice. We chose this path out of deep love for our communities and an unwavering belief that every person deserves to feel seen, supported, and unconditionally cared for - especially during the sacred moment of bringing life into the world.

Midwifery is a calling. It demands strength, sacrifice, and integrity. From day one, our journey has been marked by hardship - emotionally, materially, and spiritually. As Black midwives making up just 2% of our field, we faced grueling apprenticeships, systemic barriers to entering this field, and constant struggles to provide care to our communities while fighting to sustain ourselves.

Through personal crises, systemic hostility, and relentless roadblocks, our commitment to this work has never wavered. We have built nonprofits, organized fundraisers, offered pro-bono care, created community initiatives, and poured ourselves into solutions. But today, we are running on empty. Our passion remains, but our survival is at stake.

Invited to Collaborate, Fired for Speaking Up

Toward the end of 2024, as public concern for equity began to fade and bigotry grew louder, we were invited to collaborate with a local organization that had secured a sizeable grant to launch a midwifery clinic. Their stated mission mirrored our own: to make midwifery care accessible to Black birthing people and improve birth outcomes through a model rooted in community and collaboration. It felt like the opportunity we had long waited for.

We poured ourselves into it, donating countless hours of labor and expertise to help build a program that could finally provide equitable, barrier-free care to the people we love. We were hopeful. We invited past clients and community members into this new vision of care, excited to serve without the constant strain of financial scarcity.

But almost immediately after the clinic launched, things began to unravel.

The expectations we had agreed to were suddenly replaced by exploitative demands - requiring us to work for less than 25% of the standard rate for our services. Basic protections and standards central to the midwifery model of care were restricted, compliance gaps were rampant, consent documents required under Minnesota midwifery statutes were missing - even protocols for clients to reach the midwives in an emergency were not in place. Clients who had been told this was an insurance-based, grant-funded program were now being quoted thousands of dollars for care.

Determined to protect our clients and the integrity of our practice, we raised concerns and requested meetings. We asked for sustainability measures - additional administrative support, trained assistants, and policy reviews. We offered solutions, documentation, and research. Instead of collaboration, we were met with hostility, dismissal, and eventually, retaliation.

The breaking point came two weeks into the program.

In a midwife meeting, leadership informed us that they required us to call an emergency leadership meeting before escalating care - delaying potentially life-saving referrals. We pushed back, stating clearly that this was dangerous and unethical. None of the leadership team were licensed midwives or clinicians. They could not assess risk. Delaying a hospital transfer could mean tragedy.

After weeks of racing to fill policy gaps, being ignored, gaslit, and overworked for unsustainable pay - and now asked to violate our own ethics - we reached the line we could not cross.

In an effort to preserve the integrity of our work and protect ourselves from further harm, we drafted a professional agreement outlining midwifery standards, working boundaries, and safety protocols. This document reflected existing legal, ethical, and professional norms - nothing new or radical, just the bare minimum required to provide safe, sustainable care.

It included:

We created this agreement in good faith, with the sole intention of supporting a healthy, respectful, and functional working relationship. Nothing in it contradicted what had already been agreed upon, and it was presented with an invitation to discuss and adjust as necessary.

Two hours after receiving our proposal, the organization terminated our contracts - effective immediately.

The first email framed the termination as temporary, pending a review of internal policies, with a promise to issue a new contract at an undefined later date. A follow-up message stated our contracts “may” be renewed. Then, Midwife Bee received a text from the vice chair assuring her she still had a position. Midwife Sasha received no such message.

This move would have forced an already broken and unsustainable system onto a single midwife and erased the midwife they perceived as less likely to comply. This was a calculated attempt to silence dissent, punish advocacy, and demand compliance over integrity.

Contracts were cut. Pay was stopped without notice. Our clients - many of whom we had personally recruited - were left abandoned, mid-pregnancy, without any plan for transfer or continuity of care.

After enduring hostility, retaliation, and a blatant disregard for ethical care, we informed the organization that neither of us would be renewing our contracts. We could not and would not be complicit in a system that asked us to choose between our survival and our values, to stand by while our clients were discarded, or to allow abusive tactics to divide our solidarity and commitment to each other as Black midwives.

Immediately after terminating our contracts, the organization sent a mass email to clients informing them that their care would be "paused" for four weeks while they “restructured their midwifery team.” Clients were told to seek care at HCMC Hospital if they needed anything in the meantime. No backup providers were named. No timelines were confirmed. Just vague reassurances that care would eventually resume - even though the organization no longer had a single eligible provider on staff.

Within hours, we were inundated with panicked messages from our clients. They were blindsided - this was the only communication they had received. There were no interim care arrangements, no warm handoffs, no referrals. Medical records were not transferred. No provider had been assigned. These families were left mid-pregnancy, with no one to call and no idea what to do next.

The fallout was devastating.

Seven clients - all of whom had enrolled specifically to receive care from Black midwives - were suddenly abandoned. These were families who were relying on the grant-funded structure of the program to be able to access midwifery care. The leadership's reactionary decision not only left them stranded, it actively endangered them, causing 2 cases of delayed treatment and one late diagnosis.

At the same time, we were left jobless, with no salary, no clinic, and no backup practice. Our livelihoods disappeared overnight. Still, we couldn’t sit by and watch our clients be left behind.

So we did what we have always done: we showed up.

We took on the care of the clients who had been abandoned - regardless of their ability to pay. Today, we are providing full-spectrum midwifery care to six clients pro bono: prenatal visits, home births, postpartum care, and newborn support. We’re doing it without a clinic space - traveling to each client’s home - and covering the costs of medical equipment, supplies, mileage, and labor entirely out of pocket. The financial burden is enormous. But we could not abandon the people we were called to serve.

Meanwhile, the organization has refused to support or take responsibility. Our multiple attempts to engage them in dialogue were met with hostility, gaslighting, and eventually, threats of legal action. Despite all this, we have continued to pursue a peaceful, community-rooted resolution. We have:

We are doing everything we can to care for our clients and uphold the values we entered this work with. But we cannot do this alone.

Throughout this ordeal, we’ve done everything in our power to uphold our mission and integrity as midwives - midwives who simply want to survive while caring for our community. To us, community means showing up for one another. It means giving what we can when someone is in need. That’s the principle we've lived by as we made the decision to continue caring for the clients who were abandoned.

But now, our own survival is urgently at risk. We’ve exhausted our personal resources, and we cannot continue to pour from an empty cup. We’re asking for your support.

We need help raising funds to cover the cost of care for the six clients we’ve continued serving pro bono - clients who were left without options, and who deserve to be held with dignity and consistency. We’re also seeking a lifeline to help us meet our most basic needs - rent, utilities, food - while we recover from this sudden and destabilizing loss of income.

People often say that asking for help is hard, and it is. But we also know the power of the community we’ve built. We know that you love us, that you value the care we’ve given, and that you want to see Black-led midwifery not just survive, but thrive.

Maybe you're a fellow birth worker who understands how sacred and transformative midwifery care can be.

Maybe you're a midwife who believes in lifting up the voices of Black midwives.

Maybe you’re a family who’s been loved by a midwife.

Or maybe you're someone who just wants to see Black families receive the care they deserve - right from the very beginning of the lifespan.

Whoever you are, we believe in our shared power.

Black midwives have always held the line - offering care, even when systems abandon us. Now, we need our people to hold the line with us.

Thank you for being part of our village, and part of our community that we are proud to serve with our whole hearts.

In community, care, and resistance,

Bee and Sasha