I first attended births in my late teens and early twenties.  I had neither official title nor duties.  I offered support in an intuitive and common sense fashion.  Today, though I have completed basic and advanced trainings with Doulas of North America, I find that those initial skills provide the backbone to my work.

In addition to the lessons learned in those first births I have developed adjunct skills that are supportive to women in the birthing year.

• Certified Doula (DONA); 1999
• Certified Hypnobabies childbirth instructor; 2007
• Licensed Massage Therapist; 1985
• Certified Newborn Massage Instructor; 1986
• Certified Feldenkrais Practioner; 1991
• Ongoing Studies in:

• Authentic Movement
• CranioSacral Therapy
• NeuroLinguistic Programming
• Emotional Freedom Technique

The first births I attended were all unmedicated home births; the women who invited me to share with them this most intimate experience taught me much about strength, perseverance and patience, about believing in oneself, about expressing need and pain and joy.  They certainly helped me prepare for my own journey of motherhood. However, as might be expected, I learned much more from giving birth to my two daughters than from attending births!  To plan and let go…even an easy birth is an intense, powerful experience…the simplest of words or gestures offers much strength…time has no meaning in the middle of labor…the world disappears in the process of birthing…

In 1999 I completed the basic DONA training and once again began to attend births.  I was one of the first volunteer Doulas with the UNC BirthPartner Doula program.  I now maintain a private practice, attending births throughout the Triange, at local hospitals, the Women's Birth and Wellness Center (Chapel Hill), and in private homes.