• postpartum doula support and overnight care
• labor doula support
• Thai Yoga bodywork
• resources for community services and evidence-based information

Around the world and throughout the ages, women have helped other women birth and care for their newborns. In these times when families are scattered and friends are busy, a doula can step into this helping role and provide the support a new mother needs so she can nurture and know her baby.

Snuggling your baby in a carrier, I can fold laundry so you can take a shower. While tea is brewing, I’ll clean up the kitchen and prepare a healthy lunch. Nurturing your confidence in your new role as a mother, I can help you with the perfect swaddling technique, support your breastfeeding efforts, and help with your baby’s bath. You can take a nap, and I can bring you a swaddled and freshly diapered baby to you for breastfeeding. After breastfeeding is established, I can help with a bottle feeding during the night as desired.

I am a CAPPA certified labor and postpartum doula with experience and research in the postpartum issues of stress, anxiety and depression. Sleep deprivation can exacerbate these postpartum issues. I believe sleep is essential to health, so I offer overnight services designed to help you more adequately meet your sleep needs.

Thai Yoga bodywork continues to be beneficial during the postpartum period. Thai Yoga bodywork releases stress and promotes relaxation, helping your mind, body, and spirit connect and heal as you move forward in your role as Mother. In the comfort of your home, wearing clothing that allows you to move, I provide a gentle and relaxing one hour massage. I bring a professional grade massage mat and you bring out your favorite pillows!

Services include:

• Emotional and physical support for the mother
• Care for infant while mom rests, naps or showers
• Information and support with newborn care and feeding
• Light housekeeping
• Help with siblings
• Help with pets and house plants
• Meal preparation, shopping, errands
• Community referrals

"Mothering the new parents" - education, rest, errands, cooking, laundry, light housework, conversation.

I am a retired teacher and had many years in the business world before that. However, my work as a postpartum doula since early 2001 has been the most pleasurable and emotionally satisfying of my life.

• Birth and Postpartum Doula Services, including day, weekend, and nighttime postpartum service
• Doula Training Workshops and Mentoring Program
• Creative Movement for Birth
• Blessingway Ceremonies
• Pre-conception Counseling

Women approach their pregnancies, birthing-times, and early months of parenting with such a wide range of beliefs, hopes, and personal history.

For some women, birth is an exciting physical/athletic challenge; akin to a high mountain ascent. While it may be daunting, there is also the potential for a meaningful inner experience, and ultimately an exhilarating victory.

For some, it is a spiritual or religious rite of passage; an invitation to deepen in faith and trust, and to welcome a new soul into their family and the world.

For some, it is a frightening unknown; a time to revisit and hopefully revise self-perceptions around issues of strength, power, knowledge, safety, and trust. Sometimes past negative experiences resurface during the pregnancy, prompting women to reach a new level of healing and resolution.

For some parents, birth is the passage into a much longed-for life as a family; the joyful welcoming of a child after uncertainties of infertility or assisted conception.

For some women, it is a solitary passage into motherhood. By choice or circumstance, single mothers are called upon to dig deep for courage and strength.

For most of us, birth is a marvelous homegrown hybrid of several of these meanings. As your birth doula, I'm interested in hearing what this pregnancy and baby are to you; and developing a deep understanding of how I can be of service to your growing family.

Families of all configurations, beliefs, and birth plans are welcome. I support women in home or hospital; natural, epidural, c-section, VBAC, birth after loss, birth for adoption, and multiples.

I've been honored to walk this path with women and families for over eleven years. While each birth is unique, there are also common themes in the passage. My role is to serve as an experienced companion and guide, supporting your highest hopes and shining a light on your own wisdom, courage, and strength.