Meet Our Midwives & Team
Honoring your traditions, respecting your beliefs,
holding your birth space as sacred.
Midwife Jennifer Oquendo, LM, CPM
Jennifer blends the traditional with a scientific approach to midwifery. She believes that the client is the one to make decisions about their care and trusts in people’s innate knowing of themselves and their babies. She offers guidance with a thorough process of informed consent based on studies available from recent research as well as from information gained from centuries old approaches.
She graduated from National Midwifery Institute in 2014, earned her LM and CPM credentials in 2015, and graduated from Aviva Romm’s Women’s Functional & Integrative Medicine Professional Training Program in 2020. Read more about her journey to midwifery.
Jennifer Oquendo is a licensed midwife (LM), licensed by the California Medical Board, and a professional midwife (CPM), certified by the North American Registry of Midwives. Both of these titles require continuing education and peer review. She studied at National Midwifery Institute and apprenticed with Edana Hall, LM. She has been a childbirth educator and doula in San Luis Obispo county since 2008. She graduated in 2020 from Aviva Romm’s Women’s Functional and Integrative Medicine Professional Training Program. She enjoys our small central coast community because she often encounters clients and their families, giving her opportunities to see your children and families grow and flourish.
"…Respecting the woman as an important and valuable human being and making certain that the woman’s experience while giving birth is fulfilling and empowering is not just a nice extra, it is absolutely essential as it makes the woman strong and therefore makes society strong."
– Marsden Wagner
Student Midwife Luli Martinez
From a very early age I have been fascinated with birth and a woman’s strength and glowing beauty during pregnancy. I was born in Mexico and brought to the US at the age of four. Blessed with Mexican roots and it’s colorful culture while growing up on the central coast in California paved way for the type of birth work I would choose to do. I grew up listening and witnessing how distinct and dynamic birth experiences seemed depending on where I was and who I was surrounded by. Seeing and feeling this broad gamut of birth experiences helped me come to the realization that if I was to sit beside a mother during labor and her child-bearing years I wanted to do it in the most natural setting. This, to me, meant listening and honoring a mother’s desires and following her guidance. Time after time I feel blessed to witness the humbling process of a laboring mama coming to find her inner power during labor, no matter what route labor takes and what the final outcome may be.
Birth Assistant Kyla Worthen Hall
Kyla was born in Salt Lake City, UT. In her junior high school years, she began babysitting in her neighborhood. Unknowingly then, this was the introduction to her life’s path, working with children and families.
Kyla moved to Valdez, Alaska, a week after graduating high school, pursued an inner call to adventure into the great outdoors. She worked in the commercial fishing and extreme skiing industries, depending on the season, but always kept a full schedule with childcare jobs or community volunteer positions, for those with special needs. While in Alaska she studied early childhood development and pursued a degree in Elementary Education. After a decade of short summers and particularly long winters, Kyla found a new home in Hawaii. On the Big Island in 2004, while chasing warm-weather sports and adventures, she began contracting her services as a professional nanny. In 2014, Kyla and her long-time life mate (soon to be husband), decided to move closer to family, and landed in central California. A short couple of years later, she gave birth to their daughter.
Being able to birth autonomously, in the care of her dream team (two incredible midwives, doula, and husband), was a life-changing event. Kyla’s passion to work with children and families shifted from childcare to childbirth, after her profound and serendipitous journey through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. She feels inspired to support birthing people through this sacred rite of passage. She also finds deep purpose and joy in serving parents and families, in the way in which they desire to experience their own journey through childbirth.
Since late 2018, Kyla has been attending home care appointments and births, as a midwife’s assistant. She is currently working towards certification to become a childbirth educator and doula in the Birthing From Within philosophy while also taking advantage of workshops and training, such as Spinning Babies, to further her growth, knowledge and development in birth support.
Birth Assistant Jes Godsey
Teaching yoga for the past decade, I’m already familiar with guiding people to calm their breath, listen to their body, and most importantly to soften through the uncomfortable moments.
In 2018, shortly after the birth of our first child, it was actually my partner who noticed just how in love I was with the birth world and suggested I should dive into it.
I became a CAPPA certified birth doula and trained postpartum doula. I am also an 85 hr. certified Prenatal Yoga instructor. I love continuing my education in the birth space and am familiar with spinning babies, hypnobirthing, belly binding, and more. I am super excited about expanding my role as a midwife assistant.
I firmly believe that giving birth is not only about welcoming a new member to the family, but also about birthing new identities of our own. It is my passion to support families through that transition.
I believe that my role is to help educate, support, and honor a family’s birth and postpartum choices, without judgment, helping to stay fully in the present moment, and to remind you to breathe (if needed).
Some other fun facts about me is that I grew up in Lake Tahoe. I attended CalPoly and have a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering. I have two amazing children. In my free time I enjoy hikes with my family, laughing with my partner Troy, frolicking on the beach, reading, and exploring this world in a whole new way as I see it through my daughter and son’s eyes.
