I will never forget the day my husband looked at me, on our way out from our class one evening, and said to me, “People need to know this stuff! We should teach!” I knew he was right. And my life changed that day.

I went on to have three natural births, two midwife-attended at a hospital, and one midwife-attended at home.

After the birth of my second child, I pursued certification as a childbirth educator, began student teaching in the fall of 2005, and was fully certified in July of 2006. I never planned to become a doula, just to attend a birth here and there to keep myself current, but when my first students to give birth asked me to be there with them, and I got a taste of what it is like to be at a birth and to actually have the tools to be able to support the couple in labor and to help the mother to be able to tune into her own body and give birth with confidence and power, I knew I would be attending many more births. In 2020, following training, I also began assisting one of our local homebirth midwives. I am grateful for the opportunity I’ve been given to support families (including many repeat clients) as their doula or birth assistant at over 100 births.

I teach natural childbirth classes in Brighton in Monroe County, NY, and Canandaigua in Ontario County, NY. I am between Rochester and Syracuse, in the northern Finger Lakes region, also serving Monroe, Wayne, Yates, and Steuben counties. I support parents as a doula at home births and at all of the area hospitals including F.F. Thompson, Highland, Strong, and Rochester General.