Dear Lukas, I had the great privilege to be present at your birth. Your mother and I met at a picnic in the summertime and she invited me to come to your birth as a doula (labor support person). We met up later in the season and talked about ways I could be of help. […]

Andrew and I had been planning for the birth of our first child for two years before her birthday finally arrived. During that time we read extensively about birth and decided that the most important thing to us was giving our baby the kind of welcome to the world that all baby’s received in ancient […]

At 41 weeks and 1 day pregnant and after weeks of contractions and being 4-5 cms dilated I was a bit annoyed that I had woken still pregnant. I mean I had both of my other children on this day of pregnancy. So we went to shops for the day and let the kids play […]

I have two friends who had homebirths last summer. One had an unassisted water birth, and the other had a midwife-assisted homebirth. When my husband Carlos and I got pregnant last fall, I knew that I wanted a homebirth. I had birthed four babies previously, all with OB/GYNs in a hospital (with induction and pain […]

Find time every day to sit quietly and communicate to your unborn baby. You may choose to close your eyes and place your hands on your belly while taking deep breathes in and out…you may choose to enroll in a prenatal yoga class guided by an instructor…or perhaps you’ll choose to spend this time reading […]

This birth story can not be fully understood unless you know about the birth of my first child, a beautiful, spirited boy, Gabriel Kelly. I was naive and uneducated about birth; I had no clue that there were any options other than having an obstetrician in a hospital. My 18 hour labor started early one […]

In my many years working with women in the birthing world, one of the main concerns that always comes up is protecting the perineum from tearing. As a new doula and childbirth educator, I would respond to these concerns with the usual “cookie cutter recipe” response of heat packs, oils, and perineum massage. This recipe […]

I recently made a short movie about the homebirth / waterbirth of my son, Judah, in order to get people interested in and activated about homebirth; please forward the link to anyone you think might be interested.