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Susan Wente is running late.

Literally.

She's running as fast as she can down the hall that connects her office at Spectrum Health Gerber Memorial Obstetrics and Gynecology to the hospital's birth center.

A baby's on the way, faster than anticipated.

But first, Wente, who is a certified nurse midwife, is meeting with Arielle and Chris Ernst, a young couple from Hesperia. Their first baby is due Aug. 25. Wente's voice is calm; her attention totally focused on them. She gives the impression she has all the time in the world for them, even though a pager is buzzing insistently in her pocket, letting her know of an impending birth.

“Anything else?” she asks the Ernsts.

They are both 19 and can hardly wait for their first to arrive, a boy they've already named Owen Christopher. The Ernsts thought about having an at-home birth, a “more natural setting” than a hospital, says Chris Ernst, who is a Ferry Township emergency medical technician and part-time student. But his wife has diabetes, and they thought they'd better go the more traditional route in the hospital — so they have found the best of two worlds in Susan Magee Wente.

Wente, 61, works alongside three obstetricians and gynecologists in an office on the second floor of the Fremont hospital, deliberately located within walking — or some days, running distance — of the birth center. She's been a certified midwife for 34 years, has full hospital privileges, delivering babies, performing prenatal examinations and providing well-baby checkups.

She also has a private practice called Home Birth Partners in Newaygo, making her the only certified nurse midwife — registered nurses who have graduated from a nurse-midwifery education program — in the area who also does at-home deliveries. Many of her patients are from Newaygo and Mecosta counties' Amish communities.

“I've always loved taking care of people,” she says.

Wente, who grew up in Fremont, didn't start out in the medical field. She went to Grand Valley State University as an anthropology student. One day in class, something clicked, some conversation about feminism and women's health care, and Wente knew she had to be a midwife because midwives “empowered” women.

“Pregnant women aren't sick,” she says. “They're pregnant.”

She decided the quickest path to midwifery was as a registered nurse, so as soon as she got her bachelor's degree in anthropology, she headed to Purdue University to earn an associate's degree in nursing before applying to nurse-midwifery schools, which were rare in the early 1970s.

After getting her certificate in nurse midwifery at the Medical University of South Carolina, she earned a master's degree in public health from the University of North Carolina and a doctorate in public health from the University of Texas.

From 1981-1999, she helped start the midwifery section at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. She was responsible for three hospitals, 1,200 babies delivered each year and 30,000 patient visits in 10 clinics, plus she was an associate professor. When she left Baylor, she provided nurse-midwifery care for Seton Healthcare Network in Austin.

“It was incredible, wonderful,” she says, “but after 20 years, I just wanted to be a midwife. Not an administrator. I wanted to be a midwife again, and I wanted to come home.”