Today we’d like to introduce you to Kara Simonton
Kara, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up as an only child in a small town in Mississippi. Life was pretty simple, and my one goal was to do something amazing, get out of Mississippi and to break the stereotypical mold of a Mississippi girl. I ended up doing the opposite of what I had hoped for my entire life. I graduated from the University of Mississippi and embarked on a medical device sales career that would last a decade. During those ten years, I relocated to South Carolina to start my career and I met my future husband along the way.
I never had the desire to have children and the conversation really stopped there. After being married for one year, I was pregnant. I was in disbelief and extremely confused on how this was going to affect our lives and quite frankly, very upset. This was never a possibility on my bingo card, or so I thought.
In January 2015 my daughter Nola Gray was born. Like many mothers-to-be, I spent the months leading up to the delivery reading voraciously in an effort to educate and prepare myself as completely as possible. At some point during the course of attempting to prepare myself for motherhood it dawned upon me that it had been many years since I felt so passionately about any subject, either personal or professional. After my daughter was born I found that my interest in childbirth only continued to increase, to the point where in mid-2015 I began to seriously explore the idea of switching careers. After many conversations with my husband, colleagues, friends, and family, I ultimately decided to pursue a career as a nurse midwife and having made the decision I set about pursuing that goal with the same passion, effort, and determination that I bring to every other facet of my life.
I left her birth, defeated and shocked by the treatment and conveyor belt mentality of the hospital labor and delivery unit. The lack of consent and the treatment that I received in the hospital was shocking and I knew that I had to do something to make that experience better for others. While all of my family and friends thought I was experiencing severe postpartum depression, I was enrolling in science courses (that I had taken more than a decade prior), completing doula training to ensure this was really something I wanted to do (learning how to physically and emotionally support women in labor) and researching all educational routes to deliver babies and serve women. I had worked in surgery for ten years and a large part of my birth trauma was being in the OR, so that wasn’t appealing. I wanted to practice women’s health but not be a surgeon. I wanted to prescribe, diagnose, treat and support women who felt like they were just a number, I wanted to walk with them.
After thorough research, I landed on Midwifery, a career that is overly stereotyped and somewhat unknown to the masses.
There were many different types of midwives but in the end, I landed on the one that required the most formal education and time, a nurse midwife. I wanted to be able to practice in any setting (hospital, home, birth center) and I wanted to serve women throughout the lifespan, not just focus on the childbearing years. In our country, there is a lack of continuity of care in women’s health after childbirth and was a need for continuous care during the next phase of life. That is exactly what I wanted to do but first, I had to become a nurse. And so my five year plan began.
While balancing retaking science courses, a full-time medical sales job, applying to nursing schools, a toddler, being a wife, and training to be a doula, I discovered that I was pregnant. Don’t worry, this one was planned. I had so much more knowledge and awareness this time around and I was able to have an amazing and redemptive birth experience. I was ecstatic and ready to start nursing school with a toddler and 8-week-old newborn. What could possibly go wrong?
Over the next 12 months, I completed Baylor’s accelerated BSN program with a plot twist, the unexpected death of both of my parents. The only way to explain that time in my life was that it was chaos. I had a goal, and I couldn’t stop to grieve losing my entire family, I had to keep going until I reached the finish line.
My goal as a future women’s health advanced practice nurse was to help serve those in our community that wanted personalized care. I wanted to become a midwife to start a hospital based women’s health office that served women of any age. Midwives have been linked time and time again to lower adverse neonatal and maternal outcomes and my goal was to provide outreach to these women who have been duped by the system and did not feel cared either in childbirth or during routine healthcare visits. I wanted so badly to one day make a positive impact on those families and serve the community. I reflected on my goals, and I decided that a dual degree was what I wanted. By obtaining my master’s degree in nurse midwifery and women’s health, I hoped to serve women as their primary care practitioner and provide both gynecologic and maternity care to women and their families.
I spent the next three years completing a dual CNM/WHNP degree at Georgetown University. Nothing about it was easy, it was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. I assume that was because I never dealt with my grief, but I learned so much about myself in the process. I trained with an amazing CNM, WHNP and OBGYN and cared for high-risk women and learned so much, I was ready to hit the ground running.
I passed boards and became a double board certified CNM/WHNP and started my practice soon after that. My practice is a hospital-based women’s health office that focuses on serving women throughout the lifespan. I love prenatal care, but I equally love perimenopause and menopause care. So many women over the last two decades have been neglected and I want to be a part of that shift that we are currently seeing in menopause care.
I never imagined that a traumatic birth experience could have had such an impact on my life. I tell people every single day that birth has the ability to completely transform you and I am a testament to that. The people I’ve met, the experiences I’ve had, the hurt I’ve had to endure, and the knowledge gained along the way, has been such a healing experience for me. The emotional connection to women, especially in the labor and birth space is something that I will forever cherish.
I care for women at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas and our office is located 3 floor above labor and delivery. We have a wonderful group of medical health providers and I am truly blessed to do what I do every single day.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Absolutely not!
Losing both of my parents during my accelerated year of nursing school was a turning point in my life. Losing my entire family when I needed the most support was utterly soul crushing and devastating.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We are a concierge women’s healthcare office located in Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. We offer a full range of women’s health services that include gynecology, midwifery, preconception, family planning, menopause and primary care.
We are unique in that we run our office like an out of hospital midwifery office. We keep our volume super low so we can dedicate our time to our clients. We draw our on blood, we answer the phones and portal messages and really get to know our clients. We take time to listen to concerns and spend a lot of our time educating and counseling our clients. Simple and necessary things that all medical professionals should be doing but cannot due to insurance time and constraints, we can do under our model of care.
Brand wise, we didn’t have a website for over 2 years (due to a series of unfortunate events) and we have managed to stay completely booked for our prenatal care and have really thrived as a medical practice. I’m unbelievably proud of our patients for putting their trust into us. Our patient testimonials and reviews speak for themselves and what has built our brand. Our brand is all about serving women throughout the lifespan. We want to see you from when you’re first seeing someone for gynecology until post menopause. Anything that falls outside of our scope, we refer out but there should be a one stop shop for women and that’s what we aim to be. We strive to put the relationship back into healthcare. We love partnering with women and being a part of their story.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
I don’t know if I can narrow that down. Being in Mississippi is such a great memory. That could be tied to my parents and my grief, but it’s funny that the place I longed to get away from is the place that I miss the most. You can sit on the MS River one weekend and be on a boat on the Gulf of Mexico the next. It’s very misunderstood, sort of like midwifery.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.dallaswomenswellness.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dallaswomenspresby/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dallaswomenspresby/
Image Credits
Paul Golangco-Dallas Birth Stories
