Whole-Person

Doula Care

Care In Transition For All Parts of You

What is a Doula?

A doula is a nonmedical support person who can provide physical, logistical, educational and/or emotional support to someone in transition. While the role of doula is most recognized in birth and perinatal contexts, it exists in many other contexts of transition in which someone might need care specifically around that transition, such as death, divorce or relationship shifts, gender journeys, moving, job changes, and grief.

My Doula Practice

My practice is centered on care companionship, which is rooted in 3 things:

  • Holding Space: being present to your emotional, mental, somatic and spiritual experiences and creating containers to honor your needs.

  • Trusting, Not Fixing: while I can provide offerings of education, resources, or practices upon request, I will not give unsolicited advice. You are your own person experiencing something that is specific to your life; that is not mine to claim or control. I am here to provide support that is genuine useful to you, not make assumptions and tell you what to do.

  • Collaboration: we work together to assess what your needs are, which ones I can offer support with and what is outside of my scope or capacity. Support is individualized to who you are, where you’re at with your transition and what you are needing. I can offer resources and referrals for any support you are needing that is outside of my scope or capacity.

Components of Doula Support

  • Creating containers to be with your emotional, mental, somatic and spiritual experiences.

  • Providing information about the transition you’re experiencing, what you can expect and what you can plan for.

  • Planning for significant moments in your transition (such as labor and birth, post-death body disposition, anniversaries of tender dates). This also includes assessing what needs you have, creating plans for you to access further support, and examining ways your community can show up for you during your transition.

  • Affirming that you have a right to make decisions about your care, your body, and how you are treated. Also practicing informing folks (medical staff, family, partner, etc) of decisions and desires, stating boundaries, navigating disagreement.

  • Creating a practice of reflecting on and documenting your experience of your transition for your future self (and loved ones, if desired) to access.

  • Providing referrals and resources around support needs that are outside of my scope, capacity or education.

 FAQs

  • I offer doula support for the following transitions:

    • Birth

    • Death (including those who are not actively dying who want to expand their death awareness and complete some end of life planning)

    • Gender Journeys

    • Grief

  • My offerings are open to everyone, and I center and prioritize Queer and Trans Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (QTBIPOC), as well as other communities that fall at multiple intersections of marginalizations.

  • I offer pricing on a wide sliding scale, starting at free and going up to $5,000. Pricing depends on what support you are looking for, the time & labor involved in providing support, and where you fall on the financial resource scale.

    Free and low sliding scale support is available within my capacity.

    For folks seeking birth support: I accept medicaid (Medi-Cal) insurance.

  • I have taken 2 birth doula trainings and 2 death doula trainings. I am certified by one birth doula training organization; I’ve chosen not to pursue extensive additional certification.

Things to Know About Me and My Practice

I am a politicized, mixed Black and white, trans nonbinary, queer, neurodivergent human who moves through the world with a combination of privileged identities and marginalized identities. If you work with me please be comfortable honoring pronouns (or actively learning).

Some of my core values are anti-oppression, decolonization, connection, accountability, consent, and radical imagination. I support local and global movements for liberation—including a Free Palestine, Sudan, Congo, and liberation for all oppressed peoples. While I do not need to share exact political beliefs with folks I work with, I do ask that you are sensitive to issues of oppression and are at minimum open to (if not already actively) addressing internalized oppression you hold (such as racism, anti-blackness, transphobia, ableism, classism, etc.).

I am an atheist and I am spiritual, with a focus on connection to land and nature (including honoring the folks Indigenous to the land I am on). I am happy to work with folks of different religious and spiritual contexts.

I believe in the healing power of generative conflict, accountability and transparency. For folks I do end up working with, I invite you to call me in or out if/when you witness me carry out oppressive or interpersonal harms, and I request that it is ok for me to do the same.

I share this in large part to be transparent about who will be showing up to support you, and to request that my personhood is respected in the same way that I will respect yours. In our current world care is commodified and professionalized in a way that forces people to shrink their whole personhood into something palatable and presentable—both the provider of care and the receiver of it. The containers of care I hope to hold with folks I work with are spaces where we can meet each other as we are with no expectations to mask, dilute our experiences, or perform in any way. In this way I see these spaces as having the potential to be connective, healing, and possibly even liberating.

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