My Story

I am a mother of seven. 

My first Son was born when I was only 15 years old. I had 4 children by the time I was 21. With being just a child myself, I did not fully comprehend pregnancy or the birthing process. 

As a young mother, I was not educated nor did I feel that I was I given the opportunity to make informed choices. 

I was told what to do and I simply complied. The lack of support and education led to very traumatic birthing experiences. Simply, because the proper resources and education were not available to women in my community. I was treated like a number and really had no individualized support. With each of my five pregnancies my needs varied and each of my five birthing experiences were all unique. 

I came close to losing my life due to preeclampsia/toxemia in my fourth pregnancy. 

At that time, I was told that any future pregnancies would be dangerous and could possibly kill me. I was offered tubal ligation as a remedy, but declined. In 2017, I became pregnant with my fifth child and decided that I wanted to do things differently. I chose to have autonomy of my body, my birth and my baby. After researching, my husband and I decided on a home birth. 

At my first prenatal visit I met my then midwife, Debbie Marin. My lab results revealed hypertension and hormonal imbalances. 

These conditions are categorizes a mother as “high risk” and could disqualify a mother from birthing outside of the hospital. However, my midwife did not give up on me. 

Instead, she and her team took the time to educate me on the importance of my mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. Not only was I able to recover from all my “high risk” factors, but with my fifth pregnancy I was the healthiest that I had ever been in my adult life!  

During the entire process, my doula managed to maintain a serene, calm environment.  During birth, I ate the foods I wanted, drank my favorite beverages and even danced. 

Given the proper tools and resources, I was able to give birth to a healthy 8-pound baby boy at outside of the hospital.. I was able to catch my baby boy with my own two hands. 

After about 5 hours of labor and evaluation at the birthing center, I walked (yes walked) out to our car and my husband drove us home. For the next two weeks, I remained on bed rest and my midwife visited me every other day and supported me in so many ways throughout the postpartum experience. I share my story as evidence that with education, dedication and support we can save lives and prevent traumatic birthing experiences. 

I went from being labeled as “high risk” and almost losing my life in childbirth to going vegan and adopting several lifestyle changes during my last pregnancy that allowed me to have a completely natural birth with no medical interventions. During my last birthing experience, I felt more empowered than I had in my entire life. My doula played a large role in that empowerment. 

So, in conjunction with my nursing and personal experience I went on to be certified as a Labor/Postpartum Doula and Childbirth Educator. After soon realizing that by myself I could only serve so many women, I developed a training curriculum to educate and empower a tribe of doulas. With many hands we are making a huge impact in supporting and educating expectant families. The purpose of our Tribe is to educate and empower families, to help restore and reclaim the birthing experience and all its majesty. 

Now almost over 600 doulas later, we are reclaiming the pregnancy and postpartum experience. We are the women that support. We are helping to create beautiful birthing outcomes, one birth at a time