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Alaska has been good to me and my family.
My family and I moved to Alaska in 1992 after being stationed in California for 11 years. My husband Dr Bradley Cruz had just finished his tour of duty in the Air Force and we were ready for our next adventure. We had been visiting friends each year in Alaska since 1987 to see if Alaska was the right place for us when Brad completed his military service. We decided it was.
We arrived in June on the same day Mt Spurr erupted. Talk about a change of scenery! The volcano erupted again on my birthday in September 1992, dumping ash all over Anchorage.
Despite my complaints about the rainy and ash-filled summer – I told my husband to start looking for a job elsewhere – we stuck it out and were rewarded with the sunny summer of 1993.
My family and I spent many hours hiking in the glorious Chugach Mountains that summer, and every summer since. I told my husband in the fall to hold off on the job hunt, that perhaps I could be happy here. That was over 17 years ago and I have never regretted making Alaska our home.
I became a registered nurse in 1978 and worked in a hospital, junior high school as a school nurse and both public and private clinics before going back to school in 1985 to become a Woman’s Health Care Nurse Practitioner. I again worked in private and public clinics as a nurse practitioner before returning to school once more to be a nurse midwife, completing my training in April 1994. I worked in a private physician owned practice for a short time before starting my own midwifery practice in July 1995.
When I started my business I had few patients and extra time, so I donated some time as a nurse practitioner to the Municipal Health Clinic and to a non-profit clinic in Homer. By my second year in practice I was no longer able to leave town to work in Homer because there were too many babies due. I started my solo midwifery practice answering the phones and cleaning the office myself, but soon grew too big and brought on a partner in 2000. Our midwifery practice now has four midwives, a freestanding birthing center and a support staff of 8. The midwives in our practice attend births in our birthing center and also at both hospitals.
Seven years after opening our birthing center, we are getting ready to welcome our 500th baby sometime in December this year.
Brad and I have been married for over 30 years. He has been a physician at Alaska Regional Hospital since 1992.
We have two daughters, Laura and Claire, both of whom became immersed in ice skating, cross country skiing and enjoying the beautiful outdoors of Alaska from the moment we arrived in 1992.
Laura and Claire both attended Anchorage public schools. Both daughters competed in swimming, and Laura also ran cross country and cross country skied. And while both daughters left for college upon graduation from high school, they have since returned home to Alaska, gotten jobs and plan to remain and start families here.
Our whole family believes in service to the community. That’s why we have been involved with so many organizations such as AWAIC, CASAS, The Kincaid Project, and the Alaska Community Foundation. We have supported many ski and running events such as the Run for Women (breast cancer), Lost Lake Run (cystic fibrosis), and the Ovarian Cancer Run.
I served on the board of the not-for-profit Gold Nugget Triathlon for over five years and currently serve on the Alaska State Board of Certified Direct Entry Midwives.
Our family is active in making Anchorage a better place to live through community service.
