4/28/08

About Me

ABOUT ME
My interest in birth began with my love of babies, ever since I was very young. There are pictures of me carrying babies around, when I was pretty much still a baby myself. Someday I will find those pictures and put one on the site for fun. Many years later I was fortunate enough to be a part of my nephew’s birth. It was such an amazing experience, one that I will never forget.

I had worked for 6 years as a Certified Nursing Assistant & Home Health Aid in Minnesota.  This knowledge and experience helps me a lot during births in people's homes or at the hospital.  It also helps me to work with people and respectful of their bodies during the best and worst times.  It has been amazing to be a part of people's lives during the beginning of life and end, it is truly beautiful.

I feel like I have truly found my calling as a doula. Caring for the woman during this transformation into motherhood is precious. It is so remarkable to be invited into families and experience this with them. I work hard to do anything I can to make this day a positive and beautiful birth experience for the family. I love capturing precious moments with my camera too, because that is the only time you will birth that child, and those moments go by so fast.

I am a member of the Birth and Baby Resource Network (BBRN) and was a coordinator for the Birth and Baby Fair in 2006. I am a member of Central Coast Doulas in Santa Barbara. I am a photographer, specializing in pregnancy, birth and newborn photography.

My husband and our family live here on the Central Coast in San Luis Obispo County. We travel to Minnesota to visit family fairly often as that is where I grew up, “Uff Da”.

MY PHILOSOPHY
Ultimately I am a doula because I believe every mother should have a positive birth experience.  That is to support the birth that you want not the birth that I want!  That is what is important.  I believe that birth is a normal process. It is also an experience that a woman will carry with her for the rest of her life! I believe that our culture has placed so much fear in the birth process and it has become very medical. Pregnancy, labor, and birth decisions are being made out of fear rather than faith or confidence in a woman’s body. I believe that there is a time and place for medical intervention but I speculate that it is being used unnecessarily and that I base on the high and increasing rates of cesarean births and the rise in maternal death.