The start to a better world, or a better life, or a better future is simply our belief that it is possible. Self-confidence can work wonders, but mutual confidence can work miracles.

Penny Lane and Holly Hopkins share responsibility for all clients within the practice, offering more than twenty years experience between them within the field of maternal & child health. Families will meet with both Penny and Holly prenatally and at least one of the two will attend each birth.

Penny works out of the Thorntown office, and Holly shares her time between both Thorntown and the Lafayette office.

Penny Lane MSN, CNM, IBCLC 

Believe Midwifery Services, LLC is owned by Penny Lane MSN, CNM, IBCLC. She is both licensed and certified to practice  Nurse Midwifery in the state of Indiana. Penny is a graduate trained nurse with certification in Nurse Midwifery. She also has an undergraduate degree in Maternal & Child Health: Lactation Consulting and has attended numerous continuing education workshops and certification courses. Penny has been attending births since 1997 within private homes, birth centers and within both remote hospitals and large, tertiary centers. She has experience teaching and writing curriculum for nursing students at Ivy Tech State College and authored graduate level midwifery courses for the Midwifery College of Utah, in addition to serving as the primary thesis adviser for numerous graduate students. Penny is also an instructor for the American Academy of Pediatrics Neonatal Resuscitation Program.

Penny opened Believe Midwifery Services, her independently-owned midwifery practice in October of 2007, more than a year following completion of her midwifery training at the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing.

Penny has dedicated herself to improvement of maternal and child health through participation in many professional and advocacy groups. Currently she is a member of both the Indiana Affiliate’s American College of Nurse Midwifery and the Indiana State’s Breastfeeding Task Force. Penny is also the chair of the Boone, Clinton and Montgomery County Breastfeeding Coalition. 

Penny was privileged to be honored at the Salute to Nurses banquet as a 2009 Nurse of the Year finalist, sponsored by the Indianapolis Star. Finalists were chosen by the Indiana State Board of Nursing and Penny was additionally awarded the Advancement in Nursing Award, as well as, Believe Midwifery Services, LLC, for her work in establishing not only a safe option for homebirth clients but also for her ongoing efforts to increase the standards of care and create a safe infrastructure of collaboration with other healthcare providers. 

Most importantly, Penny is happily married to her husband, Mike, and mother to their five children: Keely, Noah, Lyric, Samuel and Simon. Believe Midwifery Services is a family ministry and it is their greatest pleasure to be called to serve the Lord and birthing families in this capacity.

Holly Hopkins MSN, CNM, CLC

Holly first became interested in women’s health while pursuing her Bachelor’s in Nursing at the University of Michigan. She took Women’s Health as an elective and subsequently was the first nursing student to obtain a Minor outside of nursing, in Women’s Studies. During this time, Holly began training medical and nurse practitioner students to perform sensitive, client-focused pelvic and breast examinations while also volunteering as a postpartum doula.

After graduating with her Bachelor’s in 2005, Holly began work as an RN in labor and delivery at a high volume, high-risk hospital in South Carolina. While she loved caring for high-risk women, she knew that there must be a different way to give birth. After a year in South Carolina, she headed west to Oregon as a travel nurse with the goal of gaining as large of a variety of experience possible prior to returning to school to become a CNM. 

In January 2008, Holly returned to Michigan to pursue her Master’s in Nursing with a specialization in Maternal/Child Health at the University of Michigan. During this time, she returned to teaching pelvic and breast examinations to medical students and developed a training program for new instructors. She also led clinical groups for the undergraduate obstetric/women’s health course. As part of her final semester, Holly spent five weeks working with a home birth midwife in northern Indiana who assisted primarily Amish women giving birth at home and at a small birth center. From the first day, Holly knew that she had finally found her place. After the first birth, even her mother noted that there was something in her voice that wasn’t previously there.

Women deserve to be respected; they deserve individualized care; they deserve to have their body viewed as healthy and normal unless illness is present. They deserve to have their experience of childbirth treated as the natural process that it is; the process that our bodies were specifically designed for.

Holly grew up in Michigan but has graciously relocated to Lafayette with her husband, dog, and chinchilla. She is very pleased to have been led to Believe Midwifery Services and accepted as a part of their team!

Midwifery Assistants

All midwifery assistants have taken an intensive Midwifery Assistant course, are certified in Neonatal Resuscitation, basic life support, and S.T.A.B.L.E, as well as DONA doulas. Several have additional training in disciplines such as nursing, emergency management and lactation.

"Professionals who provide medical and nursing care to people have privileged access to other people's bodies and occasionally forget that this is a liberty that merits respect" (Andrist).

Penny pregnant with her fifth child, ten pound Simon, and her husband, Mike, just after receiving the Advancement of Nursing Award as part of the Salute to Nurses in 2009.

"Childbirth is, by definition, a loss of control over the body- contractions and expulsion, and the bleeding and fluids and pain, are as involuntary as orgasm and sneezing. The British childbirth educator and researcher Sheila Kitzinger puts a lyrical spin on it, writing that in physiological birth a woman needs to 'joyfully surrender her body to the creative experience.' But in the hospital, the surrender is usually of the body to the provider. Women often lose control over what's done to the body, rather than over what the body does" (Block, 2007).

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.

NORMAN COUSINS

The Nurse Midwives of Believe Midwifery Services, LLC have physician privileges at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis and Carmel. They do not admit clients, as their focus of care is entirely for homebirth clientele. Clients who prove to be inappropriate candidates for homebirth or who choose a hospital transfer, would be transferred to the on-call physician at the nearest, and/or most appropriate medical facility. However, these privileges at St. Vincent allow the Nurse Midwives to consult with the Maternal Fetal Medicine physicians for high risk care management, and utilize resources such as the Diabetes Center or Breast Imaging Center. The Nurse Midwives value their physician relationships and appreciate that collaboration with experts outside their own expertise enhances their professional knowledge and ultimately the care provided to the women and infants they serve.

Penny and Holly both actively reach out to hospitals and practitioners in effort to share their work in homebirth, speaking at professional workshops, hosting conferences, and presenting in grand rounds within local hospitals. Penny and Holly both have a heart for research and education, currently both considering PhD opportunities so they can put to use the large amount of data they have collected within their homebirth practice.