Heike Hornsby (née Doyle), LM, CPM, Birth Center Co-Owner
I work closely with my fabulous, skilled team of midwives to provide family-centered care by helping to ensure optimal health for a mother and her child, encouraging a trust in the process of birth and helping to ease this joyful transition for families.
Ali Toperosky (Tromblay), LM, CPM, Birth Center Co-owner
I am always learning from this work that I love and the people I meet in it, and always I am humbled by the power that women possess and the wisdom in the eyes of the newborns.
Ellena Karpenko MSM, LM, CPM~ Clinic Midwife
Ella is our Clinical Midwife and is not currently on-call.
Ella’s experience in Midwifery has shaped the values she upholds today in her own practice. She believes in compassionate, client-centered, and evidence-based care. She believes in providing parents with options in their care and helping families make an educated choice. Ella is fluent in Russian and English.
Micki Persons, Director
I am at home here. Right where I am supposed to be….serving midwives, student midwives and many, many families. I am honored to have witnessed more than 350 babies enter this world, hundreds of beautiful families grow.
Courtney Smith MSM, LM, CPM
On my road to a midwifery career I was struck by the need for patient advocacy in a system that struggles for power. I have found that giving the evidence-based information to families and empowering them to choose what is best for them results in better outcomes.
My medical experience started in 2008 when I began working as a medical assistant with the University of Washington’s Department of Family Medicine. This work exposed me to a wide variety of people and their needs. I wanted to expand my scope of practice and was drawn to midwifery after attending my neighbor’s birth and the birth of my nephew. I was lucky enough to find obstetric training in my own backyard and completed my Master of Science in Midwifery with a Botanical Medicine focus at Bastyr University in 2019.
Aubrei Ackerman, MSM, LM CPM
Interested in birth work, I joined the Volunteer Doula program at the University of Washington Medical Center back in 2012 and attended my first birth there. I hadn’t met the person in labor before, but I trusted my intuition and the body’s innate wisdom. This experience became my foundation for birth work, and eventually, I ran the program. Supporting people I’d just met during such a transformative time was a profound privilege.
Rowena Simpliciano, Receptionist
My story with PSBC began when I was pregnant with my second daughter. The wonderful PSBC midwives were my birth team and I immediately felt at home here. Fast forward 6 years later, after being a stay at home mom for 11 years, I found my way back to the birth center.
Blake Stewart MSM, LM, CPM
My lightbulb moment felt more like a giant, flashing, neon sign. My journey led me to doula work and then to Bastyr University for my Masters in Midwifery, which I graduated with in 2019. I completed additional coursework in Botanical Medicine and love to incorporate herbal remedies into my practice. I can't wait to meet you all and share in your journeys from pregnancy to birth!
Heather Stewart LM, CPM
As I volunteered under the supervision of the tireless Filipina staff midwives, I had the opportunity to experience a high volume of births. The families that I served and grew to love taught me so much about the strength of the birth process and the beauty of each moment of life.