Believe Midwifery Services

Our Newest Arrival...

Simon David Lane

born on Father's Day!!!  

Penny Lane MSN, CNM

Believe Midwifery Services, LLC is owned by Penny Lane MSN, CNM.  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 advisor for numerous graduate students.  Her independently-owned midwifery practice opened 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 Chapter’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.  In effort to continue her quest in improving safe and satisfying options available to birthing women, Penny enrolled in the Juris Doctorate program at Concord Law School; however, due to the fast growth of her practice, she has taken a two-year leave of absence with hopes of returning after integrating a second midwife into her practice. 

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 (one daughter and four rambunxious sons).  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

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 will be living in West 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!

Birth Assistants

All birth assistants have taken an intensive birth assistant course, are certified in Neonatal Resusictation, basic life support, and S.T.A.B.L.E, as well as DONA doulas.   

Dana Fort

Office Manager

Birth Assistant, Doula

I have always been a firm believer that even though our bodies are not perfect, there is a perfect, godly design to how they work.  After the long and challenging home birth of my daughter in May of 2008 this belief was confirmed. I saw how with the proper, unobtrusive care my body was allowed to endure and adjust to safely bring my daughter into the world. This sparked a desire in me to share what I had learned through my experience with expectant mothers to help eliminate fear in the birthing process. 

A little while after my daughter was born I had the opportunity to provide labor support for a friend of mine during the birth of her first child.  Afterward she told me she didn't think she would have been able to make it without my help.  I knew then that there was more I could do for other women.  When the opportunity was presented to become a birth assistant for Believe it was perfect timing.  I am excited to be apart of a team that focuses on natural childbirth and helps guide the perfect actions of a woman's body during such a profound time in her life.  I look forward to the positive impact I can make in the lives of others and all that I have to learn and gain from the experiences to follow.

Rachel Claussen

Birth Assistant, Doula

Fitness & Nutrition Instructor

I was brought up in a home birth family.  I always loved helping my mom’s midwives with whatever they would let me do.  By the age of 14, I had cut umbilical cords, made herbal compresses, and brought my sisters placenta to my 8^th grade science class. My favorite books growing up were a series called, The Life Cycle. Needless to say I have always been enamored with the birth process. 

I decided to become a Doula in 2003 and loved attending births.  In 2006 however, our move to Indiana required I work a full time job so I was unable to offer doula services.  I’m very grateful for the opportunity to assist in births with Believe.  I am also very passionate about healthy living, and am excited to work on a prenatal fitness program for group prenatal visits.  I have been teaching fitness and dance classes since 2002.     

 Mindy Wolfe DEM

Birth Assistant

I love midwifery and women’s health care, and I have been a midwife for 7 years.  God has truly ordered my steps to bring me to this point, as midwifery was not “my” plan initially.  But I have found it to be true that God does work all things together for the good of those who love him, and midwifery has been such a blessing in my life.  I worked in the Philippines as a midwife in 2003, gaining valuable experience in how to handle emergencies while maintaining the grace and dignity that should be part of childbirth.  My own two little ones were born at home in 2007 and 2008 (and we are expecting a third this spring), and that gave me a personal appreciation of the special place that the childbearing year has for a woman and her loved ones.  I love that our bodies were designed personally and perfectly (even though our world is not perfect), and that as a midwife I can be available to answer questions, facilitate informed decision making, and be helpful should the need arise. 

January Gilley CLC

Lactation Counselor

Birth Assistant

January is the mother of four beautiful children, three boys and a long awaited girl, Saffy, born in November of 2009. January is a strong advocate for a woman's right to choose where and how to birth safely, as well as a strong breastfeeding advocate.

January is a Certified Lactation Counselor and is currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Science Degree in Maternal Child Health - Lactation Consulting. Her heart's desire is to encourage and support mothers in a non-interventive birth; however, her deepest desire is to promote, protect, and support breastfeeding couples as she feels this one mothering step makes the greatest impact in all of maternal/child health.

"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).