Keri Kordie, CNM: Experienced, Caring, and Patient-Focused

Keri Kordie, CNM: Experienced, Caring, and Patient-Focused

By Melissa McCance

 

If there’s any time in a woman’s life when she wants—needs—to have a positive connection to her health care provider, it’s when she’s expecting a baby. Even if it’s not her first pregnancy, there are so many concerns and so many factors involved in having a safe journey from conception to birth that a woman is easier in her mind if she knows her provider is really listening to her and working with her. Women choosing Keri Kordie, a certified nurse midwife and the newest member of the team at ProMedica Coldwater Regional Hospital Obstetrics and Gynecology, will definitely have that going for them.

 

Keri is a Michigan native who grew up enjoying time with her large extended family which includes 35 first cousins! A graduate of Mattawan High School, she says that she always knew she wanted to be a nurse in part from the influence of her maternal grandmother who was a postpartum nurse. “I knew I wanted to be like her and to follow in her footsteps,” explains Keri.

 

Keri was a direct admission to the nursing program at Grand Valley State University and graduated from there in 2010. Immediately upon completion of her degree, she received a job offer for the extern program at Bronson in Battle Creek. She did six months working in cardio/respiratory, but it just wasn’t a good fit for her. Keri then transferred to labor and delivery and fell in love with that service. “I thought, ‘This is what I’ll do for the rest of my life,’” she laughs. “It’s hard work, but it’s so rewarding! It’s an amazing field.”

 

After that time, Keri worked all over Michigan as a labor and delivery nurse including time in Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Fremont, and Detroit. During that period, she spent almost four years as a traveling nurse. It was while she was in Kalamazoo that she worked with midwives for the first time and Keri found it to be a different kind of care than she had seen before and was very favorably impressed. So, when a nursing friend called her and said, “We’re applying to a midwifery program,” she was ready to move into a new phase of her life.

 

They chose the Nurse-Midwifery program at Frontier Nursing University in Versailles, Kentucky, which is the premier midwifery school in the nation. Keri attended there from December 2017 until December 2019 which earned her the credential of CNM: Certified Nurse Midwife.

 

Once through the program, Keri began working at Alliance Obstetrics & Gynecology in East Lansing which she very much enjoyed. She had her first baby while she was there and realized she needed to cut back to a normal 40-hour week. She spent some time working at Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo but a shift in the staffing situation there resulted in them downsizing the midwife program just three months after her arrival.

 

Now at a good point to make a change, Keri and her husband Matt decided to try the RV life. Traveling between Michigan and Florida, Keri worked as a traveling midwife. “It was an exciting year,” she says. “We loved living in the RV—we’re still living in it.”

 

During that stretch, Keri worked some in Coldwater and really liked it. “I love rural hospitals and the people here are amazing. I was made to feel very welcome.” She began working full time at ProMedica Coldwater in June. Both Keri and Matt enjoy Coldwater, and she said her husband describes it as having a big city feel in a small city. They’ve had fun exploring what the area has to offer for recreation, dining, shopping, and community events.

 

As you’d expect, one of Keri’s favorite parts of her job is attending deliveries, and she loves helping people welcome their new babies. She also likes doing birth control consults, because she feels that she’s imparting important information that the patients will be able to use throughout their lives.

 

The challenging aspects include two things that are common struggles for anyone involved in overseeing births: getting through the next day’s office patients after being up most (or all) of the previous night and finding time for the administrative details like keeping up with emails and completing charts.

 

Keri and her husband have been married almost six years, and their daughter Kennedy is almost two. Kennedy is having a wonderful time living the RV life and has become quite the expert at sand castles! The family shares their home with two cats and a dog. In what spare time she has, Keri enjoys reading and keeping up with that large extended family. She and Matt have recently purchased bikes and the three of them are logging some miles on family bike rides.

 

To sum up her approach, Keri has this to say: “My goal in midwifery is to help people have the birthing experience they desire, and to help women throughout their whole lifespan understand their bodies and to feel heard and empowered in their healthcare decisions.”

 

ProMedica Coldwater Regional Hospital Obstetrics & Gynecology is located at 370 E. Chicago St., Suite 400, Coldwater, MI. You can reach the practice by calling 517-279-8465.