We are excited to introduce you to Jen Krebs, a Certified Nurse Midwife with our American Fork Midwife Group. With her Masters Degree in Midwifery from Yale University and a Board certified Midwife, she is an incredible asset to our team. Get to know a little more about her and her background below!

Why did you choose to become a Certified Nurse Midwife?

I have always been interested in working with women and have an undergraduate degree in Economic Anthropologie where I studied women’s issues in international economic development. A good portion of my undergraduate time was spent in developing countries working with rural women in impoverished areas of India, Bangladesh and Peru. It was became important for me to have a useful skill that I could use to help take care of women at home and abroad, which is how I became interested in midwifery. In these rural communities, it’s the traditional midwives providing care and are the main contact for the community as a whole. As a midwife, my title translates well across cultures, which I really like. I’ve alway been passionate about being involved with and caring for women. It definitely led me here.

For my undergraduate degree, we traveled internationally for research. The first time I traveled with a group to India. After that I went back with a mentoring professor for 8 months into rural areas, living in a Buddhist nunnery in a Tibetan refugee colony, to take oral life histories of former political prisoners. We worked with small women organizations that taught basic farming skills our in the rural areas of the Himalayas and India. Taking notes and collecting data was how I spent my time and eventually I decided that I didn’t like just researching, but that I needed a skill–something that could be useful to the people I was working with.

When I cam home, I went to Nursing school, completed my R.N. and immediately began my Mater’s program. During that time I worked for the Provo OB/GYN Group as a nurse during the holiday’s. I received my Master’s degree at Yale, did my clinical rotations with this midwife group and was hired on by them.

Do you remember your first or most memorable birth experience?

I attended my sister’s births and was involved in a very limited way internationally. While I always wanted to be involved with healthcare and I knew I wanted to be a midwife, my first very impactful birth experience was during my time in Connecticut and finishing my Master’s degree. The first patient that I took care of by myself, without anyone supervising me, was a 16-year-old girl who had an unmedicated birth. I put counter-pressure on her hips, helped her in and out of the shower and watched her deliver. She was so proud! It was amazing to see how impactful that experience was for her and to see all he women in her family be there to support her. I can’t even describe how powerful it was. She was so young, but so strong and it was a beautiful birth.

What do you love about Valley Women’s Health?

Everyone feels like family. I trust them all. I know all the doctors and they know me and my children. The people I work with, as a whole, feel like my family and friends. My kids love coming here to hang out, say hi to the nurses and bring in treats. They all feel cared for. When my oldest daughter’s mother passed away, the office gave her a huge gift basket. She feels so safe here and loves to walk here after school to visit and practice her Spanish with Dr. Melendez and Mirta. It’s such a loving and supporting environment.

As far as my patients go, I know that whomever I need to refer them to or whomever they meet with is going to care for them just as much as I do. Because we are so involved in such intimate parts of their lives, I love and care for all my patients and want them to be taken care of. Everyone in the office is interested in taking care of them and not just trying to get them in and out.

What is your favorite thing about being a CNM?

It’s hard to pick just one thing! Obviously I love delivering babies. It’s such a privilege to be so intimately involved in such an important part of people’s lives. Helping a woman through those really intense moments—transitioning from 8 cm to complete, find the last little bit of energy to get that head to crowning and get the baby out—is such a privilege.

I also really love being there for women through their lifespan—women who are just starting birth control, women who have really painful periods and don’t know how to deal with them, women who are reaching the age where they are being diagnosed with the last diagnosis they will have. It’s special to take care of women through all these stages of life.

What do you wish all women could know?

I wish women could know their own personal value. That’s something that all my patients, of any age, struggle the most with. They don’t know how valuable they are to everybody around them.

How can you help someone with loss and what do you think is important?

It’s important to validate their feelings and make sure they are allowed to experience all the emotions that come along with loss without feeling like they are wrong in those feelings. I see that a lot where a woman feels a certain way but then feels like she shouldn’t feel that way. It’s important for them to know that it’s normal to feel all those emotions, but also not dwell on them and find resources to move past them.

One of the most beautiful births I’ve ever attended was a termed stillbirth—beautiful in the saddest and most heartbreaking way possible.

Tell us about where you grew up and a little about your family.

What is your favorite treat?

I’m not really a treat person and like savory food more than sweet. I like really good fruit, especially apples and oranges.

What are your hobbies or favorite things to do?

Spending time with my family! I saw one of those commercials for Idaho, the 18 Summers commercial, and I feel like I have to get as much time in with my children as possible. All of my hobbies are family activities. I love to hike and be outdoors. We’re really into geology, rock hounding and fossil hunting. Anytime we have a few days in a row, we take our camper out into the deserts of Arizona and Utah to explore. We’d like to go somewhere where my daughter can practice her Spanish and hope to travel to South America soon. We’ll see!

One of our favorite trips has been to Blanding, UT, down near Bears Ears. We bring our four wheelers, hike and look for fossils. There’s a lot of Native American history there, so we look for petroglyphs. 

Right now, my girls are really into aerial acrobatics. It consumes a lot of our time, so I decided to start a beginner adult class. I’m horrible and it’s humiliating, but it’s really great exercise. We got to Aeris in Sandy and they are fantastic! They do a lot of work with anxiety and depression and work with therapy program doing motion therapy. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do what my daughter does, but I’m doing it and getting stronger—that’s what matters!

When you have 30 minutes of free-time, how do you pass the time?

What is something most people don’t know about you?

What is your favorite restaurant?

I really like to make my own food. One of our favorite family experiences has been crawdad fishing at Strawberry Reservoir. We threw out crawdad traps and proceeded to have a big crawdad boil on the picnic table on the beach at Strawberry. That has probably been one of my favorite meals ever—a big ol’ pot of corn, potatoes, sausage and crawdads.

My kids favorite restaurants are Olive Garden and Cafe Rio.