Michele was inspired to become a midwife after her own transformative births. Her journey began in 1985, at Massachusetts’ well-known North Shore Birth Center in Beverly, where calm, simplicity, and trust shaped her approach to birth. Ever so grateful for that beginning, those values have guided her through decades of dedicated work caring for thousands of individuals and delivering well over 2500 babies.

After third party reimbursement for midwives became law, Michele moved from the North Shore to the Western Suburbs and opened the first privately owned midwifery practice at Emerson Hospital in Concord. Integrating birth center principles into hospital-based care, the practice outcomes spoke for themselves: lower cesarean rates, high breastfeeding rates, higher VBAC success, and more empowered content families.

Carving out a reputation as an innovator, Michele has always championed evidence-based solutions that centered on the needs of birthing people. Highlighting a few, she led the charge for hydrotherapy tubs, coordinated the education of labor nurses on Spinning Babies positioning techniques, launched Centering pregnancy group prenatal care in a large multi-specialty group practice, and facilitated bilingual group prenatal care in an urban health center.

Michele has held several leadership roles, including Director of Midwifery at Brigham and Women's Hospital and she co-founded The Midwife Solution to expand access statewide to high quality, cost effective, evidenced-based care with midwives. She was also a primary organizer for Massachusetts’ first Midwifery Summit, tackling barriers to access, social justice issues, systemic racism, and fostering collaborative planning for the future.

Michele has been honored with the Maternal Child Health Leadership Award and the Maternal Child Health Alumni Award for Outstanding Service from Boston University School of Public Health. She notes that it is primarily the closing of the North Shore Birth Center after 42 years and over 10,000 births that has propelled her into advocacy work. Until 2021, she maintained a clinical practice, but she now channels her energy into midwifery activism and advocacy.

When she’s not busy with midwifery advocacy, Michele loves spending time with her extended family and her five grandchildren, catching live musicals and concerts, and enjoying a good laugh from her favorite comedians. When she reflects on her career, she says, “It has been an honor and a privilege to have been such an important part of so many life stories.” When all is said and done, Michele has a heartfelt insight that aligns beautifully with Maya Angelou’s wisdom: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”