Caretaker of life, curious, devoted, maternal, playful, gentle, intuitive, anchored in gratitude-- with a deep blazing fire about women’s birthing and reproductive rights.

I became enthralled with the mystery and magic of pregnancy and motherhood from a young age. My sister was born when I was five and I cherish the many pictures of me tending to her alongside our mother. At age twelve I took a RedCross babysitting and infant CPR course so I could start offering “Mother’s Helper” support to the neighborhood moms; and I now have over eight years of professional nanny experience. My journey into women’s health and birth was slow and winding, and began in college where I was fascinated by the female body in physiology and anatomy courses. I graduated UNC Asheville with a BS in Health and Wellness and wrote my thesis on paid maternal leave in the United States (and how we are the only developed country in the world who doesn’t offer it).

The first time I heard the word “midwife” I was around age twenty, and the awakening to my path hit me like a revelation: “That is the path I am supposed to travel on.” I have spent the last 9 years discovering what midwifery means to me and how I can center mothers and babies through holistic care and webs of community support. 

Unsure where to begin my more formal birth training, I used the local birth doula training as a stepping stone. Next was the postpartum doula training and then the breastfeeding support class for birthworkers.  

Interested in learning about cross-cultural ancestral birth knowledge, I had the privilege of traveling to do birth-work abroad with the organization “Wombs of the World.”  I spent two January’s in a row in Karatu, Tanzania to partner with the local midwives in a birth clinic to help create a doula program for the local community. In the majestic Andes Mountains of Cotacachi, Ecuador I learned from indigenous midwives. Their midwifery wisdom has been preserved and passed down their matrilineal line for dozens of generations and it was there that I unlocked my remembrance for community herbalism and rites of passage ceremony. I am also so grateful to have received the “closing of the bones” ritual from them, and a blessing to offer it to postpartum mothers in my own community. 

In working as a postpartum doula, I realized there was more to postpartum care than meal-trains and help around the house. I am so thankful to have invested in INNATE Postpartum Care Certification Training with my teacher Rachelle Garcia-Seliga. It is through this wisdom I have come to know and understand what is required in the postpartum time both cross-culturally and physiologically for healing and nourishment. 

I have been studying midwifery more formally through multiple schools, workshops, conferences and apprenticeships over the last 5 years and feel so honored to begin to offer home-birth midwifery care to families in the greater Asheville area sometime in the next year. I have a special love for breech and twin births and I am dedicated to prioritizing the knowledge of this variation-of-normal through attending hands-on training workshops. I also have a precious tender spot in my heart for families experiencing the deep heart-ache of pregnancy loss and stillbirth, and desire to walk with more families as they  write their own birth and healing story amidst the grief. 

I dream of the day when birth options are plenty, home-births are the norm, and families are deeply supported by community from pregnancy into parenthood. My passion lies in educating families on the many home-birth options in WNC and offering consulting to help families find the best birth support or care provider who aligns with their own values. We are lucky in WNC to have many home-birth options, but because most of them are “underground,” many people don’t know about all of the midwifery options in our area. I have a gift of being a birth-world networking mastermind and love to weave webs of connection through the many different women’s health providers in WNC; and I love sharing this resource web with those around me!

When I’m not spending time with moms and babies, you can find me contra dancing, trying something new in the kitchen with my beautiful writer and gardener wife, wildcrafting and studying herbalism, singing in choir, and going on walks with our Golden Retriever, Peaches.