One of the founders of NEW DAWN MIDWIFERY, Jan lives on a small farm near Weaverville, NC, with her two dogs, two horses and one cat. Jan is passionate about organic gardening and growing of perennial flowers. In her past lives she was a teacher, a freelance writer and photographer, and mother of five children, the last one born at home. It was that birth that convinced her she had to drop everything else and become a midwife. She received her nursing education at Asheville-Buncombe TEC, her midwifery education at the Frontier School of Nurse-Midwifery and her Masters of Nursing degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. When not on call for NEW DAWN, she enjoys riding her horses, hiking, gardening and writing, and traveling. Jan also has been committed to providing medical care to the Korin community in Thailand annually.

Jan has been attending births in North Carolina since 1982 with the foundation of her training being homebirth. She brings a patient, perseverence to her art which honors the wise-woman tradition. It is through her committment to these fundamental principles which gave birth to New Dawn.

Nancy has attended births since 1982 in North Carolina. She is apprentice--trained and recognized by the North American Registery of Midwives as a Certified Professional Midwife.

She and Jan Verhaeghe have been midwifery partners since 1982 and in 1997 opened New Dawn Midwifery in Asheville. Since North Carolina is one of the few states which does not recognize direct-entry midwifery, Nancy attends births as an assistant to the nurse-midwives and teaches childbirth education at New Dawn. Nancy is committed to weaving the traditional art of midwifery with access to the medical model when appropriate. She also has 16 years of medical office management. Nancy serves as the Practice Administrator of New Dawn Midwifery, and specializes in medico--legal issues and medical insurance billing.

Nancy has been married to John Koerber for 30 years, has 3 children and 4 grandchildren. In her spare time she loves working in her garden and on her saltwater reef aquarium.

Kirstin has lived in North Carolina for 8 years. She grew up in Haiti where her parents were medical missionaries. She obtained her nursing education at Messiah College in Pennsylvania and her midwifery training at the State University of New York. After completing her nursing training she returned to Haiti to work where she oversaw the maternity ward at a large hospital there for 2 years. It was there that she gained experience in "catching babies" as well as a passion for caring for mothers and babies. From her experiences in Haiti, she knew that she wanted to become a midwife so she moved to North Carolina to fulfill her dream. She has been a nurse-midwife at New Dawn since August 2005.

Kirstin lives in West Asheville with her husband, Lee and their two home-borne daughters, Skyah and Eily. Besides midwifery, Kirstin loves hiking, gardening, traveling and being a mother. Kirstin will be seeing clients in the offic part-time only until Eily gets older.

Jenn has been studying midwifery and birth for several years and attended a holistic/traditional midwifery course in early 2007. She is currently a student at the National College of Midwifery, were she is pursuing an Associates Degree in Midwifery along with her CPM certification.  She has also been a La Leche League Leader since 2005.

Jenn grew up in Florida, but has spent the last 10 years living in Colorado, Hawaii, New Mexico and of course, North Carolina. She has been in the Asheville area for 5 years and is now a single mom living in Fairview with daughter, Olivia (born at Mission in 2003) and son, Bodhi (a planned homebirth, but delivered at Park Ridge Hospital in 2005). Jenn understands the needs of each family as an individual unit and truly values and supports the choice for home or hospital birth.  She feels blessed to be apart of the birthing community in Asheville and is looking forward to continuing to support families in WNC.

Molly is married to Petelo Leota and has three home-borne children and two Samoan step-children. She also has a business making vegan snacks. In addition to midwifery and cooking, Molly is also a DJ on Asheville's newest radio station, WPVM, on Saturday nights playing positive R&B, hip-hop, and funk from 8-10pm. Molly also has a website where she makes hand-printed baby clothes at www.punkyonesies.com

Kelly joined New Dawn in March 2007 as an office assistant.  Her passion for midwifery emerged after the birth of her son, Doran, who entered the world in October 2006 with the assistance of the New Dawn midwives.  Kelly studied Biology at Mars Hill College and has made Asheville her home for over six years.  She currently resides in Oakley with her husband, Matt, and their son.  Her interests include vegetable gardening, knitting, baking, and blogging about her life with a one-year-old boy.