The calling into birth work

In 2012 I was sitting in a guided meditation in a bougie LA mansion. Singing bowls were ringing, flutes were being cast about the space as if to give our thoughts wings to be carried to fertile ground. As I lay on my back, my hands began to tingle. At first, the sensation made me nervous. I began to have visions of my hands being made of light and they were magnetic, in a sense. I was guiding babies from the womb onto the chest of their mothers. One by one, calmly and gently welcoming them to earth, to life.

I came out of this experience with a strong call to become a midwife. I don’t recall who it was or where I was… but someone recommended that I explore Doula work, just to get an idea of what its like to be a tender of the realm of birth. Somewhere along this time, I had gotten pregnant with my first, I was 22 or so. This baby returned into Gods hands, as we painfully miscarried. This was such a teaching moment for me. No one prepared me for the labor I would go through as I passed the pregnancy from the comfort of our cozy home. I feel like this experience ripened my heart even more for the spaces I wanted to hold for women.

I took a Doula training, and from there, it was really quite effortless for me to connect with families and begin supporting them during birth. I was so young and fresh to this realm that I only wish I knew what I know now. I suppose that’s what wisdom is—going through things and learning. I birthed my son in the warm California winter of 2014. It was a long labor at home, which resulted in a transfer to the hospital and a delivery that did not go at all as I had perfectly planned it in my mind. I didn’t set up support for myself in ways I would now, and those very moments also inform how I practice tending to women now.

I know the power of a calm presence in chaotic moments when you are just so tired and feeling defeated or questioning your ability to do what’s laid out in front of you. I have become the Doula that I would have needed. I treat my families the way I would want to be treated. That in itself has been such medicine.

After my son was born, I took a long pause to focus on motherhood and also dove pretty deeply into my artistic practices. I was ready to support birth again in 2017, and this is when my family and I moved to Ashland, Oregon. I caught wind that the local community hospital employed Doulas, I thought that was so cool… and I was just about ready to start working at it again. Still, the lingering thought of becoming a midwife danced around my brain… I met with a local homebirth Midwife named Cara Frantz. I was basically asking her to point me in the direction of how to become a Midwife. Again, she pointed me towards Doula work. Alas, I started filling my basket with tools, experience, and more wisdom. Life taught me so much about using my own voice, empowering my choices, being a strong mama bear, learning about trauma and how it effects communication, consent, and it speaks through our body. I went on a deep healing journey.

It wasn’t until 2021 that I was really prepared to attend Births again. So much of birth work requires us to have a firm and consistent capacity. I had tended to myself, my own inner child things that arose in becoming a mother, parenting in itself, marriage, and more.

Now, I know the rhythm I need to sustain in my life to hold mamas and families as they expand. I trust my own bodies wisdom and in that, i carve out space for my clients to do the same. Safe birth starts with a regulated nervous system. Women need to feel safe, held, seen, and heard. Through my own experiences as a woman, mother, and deep feeling human, I show up to see the whole picture. We don’t just create a birth plan and expect everything to go perfectly. We explore who you are, where you’ve been, what helps you feel safe, and create a container for you to move, tranform, trust yourself, and enter into the most potent portal of your life. I am honored to hold the threshold with and for you as you dance through. I support you choices, even as they ebb and flow. We can talk about things. I understand the changing feminine nature.

I know that God created me to do this work. Every experience I endured, both good and bad, led me to be able to be present, loving, prayerful, professional, and wild… in this work. It calls for all aspects of me to exist with you, and I am SO here for it. We will laugh, we might cry, we will be silent, still, deep, shallow, honest, modest, feral, and most of all, real.

It’s a blessing that I can be paid for this work, and it’s ancient to me as well. I see it no more and no less than a blessing to be able to be with families through the most meaningful moments of their lives, and I treat it as such.