About me
I am an advocate, educator, and companion for people experiencing profound life changes. Some might describe what I do as full-spectrum doula work, but this term has various interpretations and doesn’t fully encompass who I am. “Doula,” in particular, is a title I resist due to its etymology, once being used in ancient Greece to refer to “a female slave.” As a non-binary person it’s misgendering, and it would have my ancestors rolling over in their graves to ever hear me call myself out the freedom they fought for me to have. It is, however, the most legible way to be known for what I offer, and I don’t feel any kind of way towards others using it.
I help people make, carry, birth, feed, and raise babies. Aside from growing families, I support my trans and non-binary fam (sometimes beginning as strangers) through our ever beautiful, messy, and miraculous process of becoming ourselves. Sometimes this work involves teaching and lateral mentorship with other birth workers, and sometimes it looks like pouring my heart into a pan of frying plantains and steamy coconut rice.
I am a student-midwife, dreaming to one day practice community-centered, gender-affirming primary care in partnership with other queer and trans kin. I grew up hearing ancestor stories about my great, great grandma’s work as a midwife in Martinique and have been living doulahood my whole life, in the way I relate to people around me as well as the people I come from. Birth is my biggest teacher. Through this work, I soften myself to the unpredictability of transitions, the rawness and vulnerability, the potential for deep core/root/generational healing that these thresholds awaken in people’s lives.
And most importantly, I work how I live: I try to rebel against cis heteropatriarchal capitalist white supremacy by practicing mutual care and interdependence in all relationships, from short-lived interactions to kinships that last many lifetimes.
Etant donné que le français est ma langue maternelle, je propose également tous mes services aux familles francophones, y compris celles dont l’anglais est limité.
Education / Training
POC Only Doula Training with Sumayyah Franklin; June 2017
WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Training with A More Excellent Way; July 2017
Full-Spectrum Doula Training with Ancient Song Doula Services; April 2018
Certified Breastfeeding Counselor (CBC) with Lea Rivera, IBCLC; Brooklyn, NY; April 2019
Infant and Adult CPR and AED with American Red Cross; September 2019, renewed November 2023
Pregnancy and Infant Loss with Nneka Hall; August 2019
Roots-N-Seeds Herbalism and Medicine Making with Third Root Community Center; October 2019
Advanced Holding Space for Pregnancy Loss Birth Breath and Death Institute; March 2021
continuing education
I am a full-time student in training and mentorship to become a home-based midwife, with the goal of providing clinical conception support and hormone replacement therapy. The areas in which I am currently growing my knowledge are:
Support around fertility and family planning, at-home insemination, adoption, and surrogacy
Prenatal and postpartum nutrition
Pausing and initiating hormone replacement therapy to carry a pregnancy or lactate
Inducing lactation for non-gestational caregivers
Conditions outside the scope of normal challenges to lactation and chestfeeding success
