10/04/2026
From Tara:
Today Olivia caught the last baby she needed for her Phase 3 primaries, and I genuinely don’t know how to put into words what it feels like to have had a front row seat to this part of her story.
There is something incredibly special about watching someone you love become who they were always meant to be.
Liv, I have watched you learn. I’ve watched you question yourself, stretch yourself, find your voice, trust your hands, trust your instincts, and grow into this work one mama and one baby at a time. I’ve watched you walk into birth spaces carrying more confidence than you realized you had and walk out of them just a little more like the midwife you’re becoming.
And somewhere along the way, my best friend became my right hand. 🥹
There are very few people I would trust beside me in the sacred, messy, unpredictable hours of birth the way I trust you. You know when to move and when to be still. You know when I need an extra set of hands and, somehow, when I just need you to look at me from across the room. You care deeply. You work hard. You stay curious. You love our families so, so well. And you understand what an unbelievable privilege we have to be invited into these moments.
Getting to teach you has been one of the greatest honors of my career, but the truth is that you have taught me just as much.
I hope you know how incredibly proud I am of you. And not just for checking a final box or reaching another milestone, but for the midwife I have watched take shape in front of me.
This morning, you caught the most precious baby boy. One more tiny person into your hands. One more mama who will forever have your name tucked somewhere inside the story of the day her baby was born. One enormous step closer to the thing you have worked so incredibly hard for.
Someday very, very soon, I won’t be standing beside you because you’re my student. I’ll be standing beside you because you’re my colleague. My partner. And somehow, by some miracle, I’ll still get to call you my best friend.
I love you endlessly, Liv. I am so incredibly proud of you. 💜
