Support BIPOC midwifery and meet urgent needs!

I know an incredible midwife of color, Emi Yamasaki McLaughlin , who has been a safe haven for so many Seattle families seeking home or birth center birth, but particularly for BIPOC, queer, trans, and non-binary families. Now she needs us, so she can keep providing this essential service. Until the healthcare system adequately pays for midwifery, this career will be a struggle that involves a lot of sacrifice.

For 10 years this amazing midwife has given her body and soul to this work, which is rich in both joy and sleep deprivation. She bought a birth center and made it a welcoming home for her clients. She took countless hours of call with rare time off. She helped brings babies into this world that will change this world, and took incredible care of their parents in the process.

If love and commitment and awesomeness and hard work were well compensated, if families and children were truly valued, if the medical industrial complex offered reasonable reimbursement rates for licensed midwives, this midwife would have no financial concerns. That's not the world we live in. Instead, she is struggling to make ends meet.

The weight of inequity in this field, a series of unfortunate technological and logistical events, and car break downs have all come together in a way threatens her financial safety as a person and as a midwife.

I want to help Emi. I want you to want to help her. I want her community that she has served so well, to wrap themselves around her in this moment, and help her financially.

This is what she needs:

1. $10,000 to get caught up on rent and business expenses PLUS a working, reliable, snow-capable vehicle with less than 100k miles on it

OR

2. $14,000 to get caught up on rent and business expenses and make needed repairs to her existing vehicle

AND

3. The medical industrial complex to change in a way that allows community-based midwifery to be financially sustainable!

We can totally make items one and two happen RIGHT NOW! Item three will take our ongoing love and support and advocacy.

Here’s what you can do:

- Donate now!

- Write a story and post a picture of your home birth baby and why you love midwives, ask your community to support equity for home birth, and share this GoFundMe on your social media page (see mine! Irie Storm for Emi!)

- Donate your rarely used car to this steadfast midwife who drives in the middle of the night, in whatever conditions the weather has to offer when a client goes into labor, and has to lug a ton of stuff around with her in while she’s doing it!

To learn more about Emi and her practice, take a peek at her website: Journey Midwife Services: https://www.journeymidwife.com/

Thank you thank you!

Xoxo,

Irie's Bapa (Simon Adriane Ellis, trans and non-binary Certified Nurse Midwife)