Ember Midwifery is care that happens in your home, where you are the most comfortable and least inconvenienced. Prenatal visits, details like lab draws, birth, and postpartum care are all provided in your space, allowing more time for your needs to be met, and for connection and trust to grow. Appointments can be longer when you want them to be, and concise when that better suits your needs.
Partners are actively included and supported, with care that encourages unity, communication, and shared confidence as you prepare to welcome your baby together.
Care emphasizes nutrition, physiological pregnancy, and thoughtful preparation for birth, including specific practices that support the body’s ability to labor efficiently and cope well with the physical demands of birth. The goal is to support health in a way that reduces the need for unnecessary medical intervention whenever safely possible. Faith, reverence for birth, and respect for the family unit quietly inform my approach, without rushing or pressure.
This is a private-pay, boutique midwifery practice for families who value time, presence, continuity, and care that meets them where they are, literally and emotionally.
You are not just preparing for a birth.
You are becoming a family, and you deserve care that honors it all.
About
Desiree LeFave CPM, LM
A midwife since 2001, Desiree has attended more than a thousand births across home and birth center settings, including many hundreds of water births. In 2007, she co-founded a freestanding birth center in Oregon that continues to serve families today. Her work has always been rooted in community, both locally and globally. In 2010, she and close colleagues helped open a nonprofit birth center in Haiti to solve health disparities, which also remains active and thriving.
She values both the collaboration of birth center care and the intimacy of home birth, and has spent her career thoughtfully working within both models. Desiree is a State Licensed, Nationally Certified Professional Midwife, a longtime preceptor having trained dozens of midwives, and currently serves as a committee chair with the American Association of Birth Centers, where she is deeply engaged in policy and advocacy work.
Desiree's faith guides her life and work. As a Christian, wife, mother of three adult daughters, and a grandmother, she brings both professional wisdom and lived experience to her midwifery practice. Known for her steady judgment, thoughtful attention to risk, and calm leadership, Desiree is a trusted and respected guide for families and colleagues alike.
Desiree’s midwifery roots were planted in Oregon, where she built decades of experience attending births in home and birth center settings. Now practicing in Washington, she is delighted to care for families who seek intentional, relationship-centered birth, full of warmth and support.
My Approach
My care is grounded in deep respect for physiologic pregnancy and birth, steady clinical judgment, and experience attending to pregnancy within thoughtful boundaries.
I practice with calm attentiveness throughout pregnancy and labor, holding space for the body’s innate wisdom while remaining quietly watchful. I believe birth unfolds best when it is protected, not managed, and when families feel informed, and deeply supported. My role is to create an environment of trust where the process can move forward naturally, intervening thoughtfully and decisively only when truly needed.
Alongside this, I maintain careful risk screening and ongoing assessment throughout your care. I prioritize early recognition if something begins to shift outside of normal and act promptly when warranted. Wisdom and discernment guide my steps, with a dual focus on protecting physical well-being and preserving the emotional experience of your birth.