I remember touching my mom’s belly when she was pregnant. I remember feeling close to the magic of life growing inside of her. I remember when my parents held my sister and I on their laps as they told us that we would be having not one but two new siblings. I remember the powder blue knit sweater my mom wore in those early days. 

The impact of those babies not making it earthside is still felt in my family today. So much of that experience has rippled from the lack of affirming care and support we received during that time. Public health failed my parents and without resources for their grief and loss and ongoing postpartum care for my mom, there was little left for the experiences of the little ones who watched it all happen and who carried on without the siblings there was a room waiting for.

I choose the work of a doula as a powerful stance in solidarity and kinship with people who are Black, Brown, Indigenous, pregnant and trans, who are living at intersections that complicate their relationship to receiving affirming health care, safe deliveries, and supportive reproductive choices. 

My life and work have given me more than enough reasons to have a healthy distrust of healthcare spaces and to create thoughtful and creative approaches to moving through them centering harm reduction and transformative change simultaneously. 

I come from a long line of people with uteruses who have experienced many manifestations of patriarchy, white supremacy, and fatphobia while receiving health care, including my own trauma in utero. Many of my skills, instincts, and insights as a doula come from my own lived experiences as a queer, mixed-race, disabled, fat, nonbinary person and the shared experiences of family members, friends, and peers.

In my previous work in queer & trans arts and as a youth leader in the HIV movement, I have always had a personal investment in what I offer as my contribution to my communities. I see my doula services as a vocation, a discipline, a daily practice in journeying alongside deep transformational experiences that act as the cornerstone for actualizing the liberatory futures we long for. 

Also, it’s fun! I reject the myth of scarcity and the trauma doomed cissexist narratives that inaccurately describe our communities. I am deeply committed to finding ways to make birth and gender affirming care pleasurable, fun, playful, and infused with delight and wonder! I believe euphoric alignment in moments of great vulnerability is wildly magical and directly impacts the collective. So let’s lean into the unabashed joy together of choosing life and having the courage to transform into our fullest most expansive versions of ourselves!

Em