First and foremost I am a mother to four amazing children, three sons and one daughter. I am also a grandmother to five little ones whom I adore.
The birth experiences of my four children have been responsible for great reflection in my life. Each one bringing me deeper into this calling as a birth worker and an IBCLC Lactation Consultant.
Women’s health and the art of childbirth and breastfeeding has been a lifetime passion of mine. I believe in a woman’s strength and intuition. I embrace birth as a natural occurring event of the utmost innate proportion. Over the past three decades I have worked diligently to maintain my calling and to honor the path my hands and heart have led me to. To date, I have supported more than 1,000 births. I have also worked alongside hundreds of new mothers to help them meet their personal breastfeeding goals. Additionally, I have educated and counseled numerous couples as they navigate the early weeks and months of parenthood. The diversity of the various multicultural clientele I serve has provided me with a deep personal understanding and respect for the vast customs and unique traditions that families practice around the globe.
It is my lifelong goal to offer support and education to as many families as possible regarding the importance of a safe, thoughtful and positive birth experience. I aim to be a driving force in the movement to change the way childbirth is perceived in our culture. I strive to teach women to trust their ability to birth and breastfeed with care and confidence.
I have many interests…spending time with my large and loving family and my even larger extended family! I enjoy being part of the very busy and interesting lives we share. I enjoy kayaking, gardening, swimming, photography, history and the many variations and cultures of music. I am grateful to have kept my childhood friends close in life. I feel blessed to live among the changing seasons and the majestic backdrop of New England that I call home.
Babies! babies! babies!
Favorite Quote
"It is never too late to be what you might have been," -Thoreau
The Charter of Peaceful Birth and Beyond
To empower women through their birth experience.
To encourage women to listen to their bodies and to trust the process of birth.
To be a driving force in the movement to change the way childbirth is perceived in our culture.
To uphold the highest level of compassion and care for birthing families.
"To help change the world one birth at a time."
About My Logo
This is my logo. It is special to me and carries with it a message that I am compelled to share.
It was an early midweek morning on a bright spring day. I had just left a hospital birth in Boston where I stayed up through the night and supported a long, powerful birth. I was pulling out of the parking garage but for some reason despite the thick tiredness that had set into my being, I didn’t feel like driving home just yet. Something was on my mind and I wasn’t sure what it actually was. I drove to the river and found a quiet bench to sit on and watched the sun slowly start to spread light across the city. I sat is silence and cleared my thoughts.
And then it came to me...the thing that had been holding fast in my thoughts waiting for a quiet time to be heard. I began to draw this image on an envelope I had discarded into my bag earlier. The silhouette of a pregnant mother carrying the world.
A few days prior to that morning I ran into an old acquaintance by chance. We chatted and caught up on our lives. He asked what I was doing for work and when I began to tell him, he cut me off mid sentence and said “sounds like women’s business.” That statement had been bothering me and was hanging around in my thoughts waiting for me to visit it again. My logo was born from that conversation. I believe there is nothing more important, nothing more urgent or sacred than education to new mothers and the protection of new life as it is ushered into this world. From a societal point of view, pregnant women may appear to be in what is referred to as a “condition.” But every birth I have had the honor to witness has solidified my theory that a new life is everyone’s business! It is the business of mothers and fathers and grandparents and siblings and bosses and co-workers and neighbors and friends. Bringing a healthy life forward is the assurance of our future. Every new life will be a piece to the fabric of the future. The next leaders and parents of our world. The next generation of engineers and care givers and safety workers and health providers. The next generation of teachers and grandparents and students. The next generation that we will hand over the job of caring for our planet and caring for one another. And thus the logo was born!
Promoting a healthy, supported pregnancy and birth is not just “women’s business", it is the business of all of us. "Each and every birth holds a future hear on earth" -Peaceful Birth and Beyond