My birth work journey…

When I was very pregnant with my first child, I went for a walk with a neighbor and her newborn baby. She told me that the key to her positive birth experience was having a supportive birth team who listened to her, respected her choices, and trusted the work her body and baby were doing in their birth process. I went home thinking that sounded pretty perfect to me. 

At my next OB appointment, I asked questions about choosing positions for pain coping and pushing, freedom of movement throughout labor, avoiding unnecessary interventions that would restrict this, and bringing a doula with us to our hospital birth. When she brushed my questions aside, noting that these were great ideas for my second baby but for this first one it would be best to stick with following her lead, I knew it was time to make some changes. I switched my care to my neighbor’s practice, signed up for a childbirth class, and hired a birth doula. My labor turned out to be longer than I had anticipated, with some road bumps that under another person’s care may have led very quickly to interventions I hoped to avoid. With my midwife, husband, and doula supporting me though, I felt prepared, confident, and supported in my decisions as we faced each unexpected turn and eventually welcomed our beautiful baby girl into my arms. 

That first birth experience fascinated and transformed me, but it wasn’t until my son’s birth three years later so inspired and empowered me that I decided to look into becoming a birth doula. After day one of the initial training in 2007, I was hooked. As I moved into birth doula work and observed the disconnect between physiologic birth and what many people experience during their labor and birth processes, I made a commitment to improving maternity care by creating spaces in which pregnant and birthing people feel cared for, respected, confident, and safe. Continuing my perinatal education with postpartum doula, lactation counselor, childbirth educator, Evidence Based Birth®, Birthing From Within, and birth trauma trainings has been a big part of that commitment.

Today I teach childbirth classes as a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator (LCCE) and an Evidence Based Birth® Instructor. I firmly believe in empowerment through preparation, and love supporting people as they prepare for and journey through labor, birth, and early parenthood. 

Degrees and certifications: MA - Cultural Anthropology, Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, EBB Instructor, Certified Breastfeeding Counselor, DONA trained Birth and Postpartum Doula