My name is Cori Lively, and I am a homebirth midwife serving the DFW area. I have been attending births professionally since 2003, and I opened Barefoot Midwifery in Addison, TX in 2006. I am both a Texas Licensed Midwife and a Certified Professional Midwife with the North American Registry of Midwives. I am a Trained Breastfeeding Educator and maintain current certifications in CPR for Healthcare Professionals and Neonatal Resuscitation.
My midwifery journey begins with my own birth. My mother had natural childbirths with both my sister and me, and growing up with those powerful stories, I knew from an early age that I wanted to have my babies naturally. While I was earning my bachelor’s degree at Texas Woman’s University, I supported several of my friends through labor, although at the time, I never considered that I would later make a career out of what I was instinctively drawn to do with supporting women birthing their babies.
When I later married and became pregnant, I started my own care with an OB that was known to be open to natural births. However, I found out during the course of my pregnancy that the other OBs in the practice were not supportive of natural childbirth. Knowing that I could end up with any one of them depending on when labor started, I decided to switch to midwifery care. I thought, from my limited knowledge of midwifery at the time, that all midwives were about the same, and so I picked the one that was in-network with my insurance, and didn’t know that I could interview around. In retrospect, the midwife I went with was not the right fit for me, and as soon as my firstborn son was on my chest, I turned to my husband and said, “I am going to BE the midwife I had wanted for myself.”
I knew that midwifery school was a huge commitment and I was a new mother, so I started with research, self-study and doula work. For my second birth, I interviewed around with many area midwives and found that there was such a huge variety of philosophies, practice styles and personalities. And I knew this was what I was meant to do with my life. When my second son was 6 months old, I went full-fledged into midwifery school. I trained with many area midwives in both homebirth and birth center settings. I also attended many hospital births as well during that time. In 2006, I completed all my clinicals, graduated my program, sat the NARM exam and upon licensure, opened Barefoot Midwifery.