Open Letter to Community
Birthing change.
Birthing Life.
Birthing New Worlds.
I am a doula for anyone looking to increase their relationship to pleasure and ease while seeking reproductive justice and gender affirming care.
We have inherited quite the complicated relationship to ourselves, to how others see us and to feeling good. Depending on our relationship to these lands, there is a range and scale in our ability to find the affirming care, guidance, support, and teachings needed to live a happy and easeful life. Many of us feel as though we can barely keep our head above water, as we navigate how capitalism and white supremacy show up in our lives.
Joy often can feel just out of reach.
Advocating for ourselves when in vulnerable situations can feel terrifying.
Seeking affirming medical support can feel impossible.
Fortunately for those of us that ebb in and out of these experiences, we also come from long lineages and histories of doing the impossible, of magic, of manifesting some of the most beautiful and sacred things that this world has to offer. After all, we are all in relationship to birthing new worlds every day.
Many of us are navigating birthing new versions of ourselves, birthing new life into the world, birthing new felt range in our bodies, and every time we do each of these, we literally change the tapestry of our communities, our futures; all which ripples in ways that cannot be measured.
The thing I am most confident in knowing is that it is the very intersections of our backgrounds, identities, and lived experiences that are the source for the nourishment we seek.
If you are new or growing more into your queerness and/or transness, are naming and recognizing new ways of navigating neurodivergence, craving to build relationship with your size, or are unsure if sex is for you, you are welcome here! If you are soon to be a single parent, are considering an abortion, are planning how to ask your friend for a sperm donation or are needing some extra support managing your viral load while pregnant, you are welcome here! I am here for all the nuance of your experiences as both an advocate for you in the world, and as a peer who is cheering you on, asking hard questions to give those beautiful dreams of yours a chance to be born.
For me, a doula is someone who has the capacity to hold the breadth, complexity, and care of a transformational experience, so that those centered in the experience can turn up the dial on their own needs, instincts, and inner wisdom. I believe that you already know what you need and have everything that you need to make this possible for yourself. I also believe that we find ourselves in a moment and society that actively works to separate us from our needs and erase those of us in black, brown, disabled and trans bodies.
Knowing this, working with a doula is an invitation to strengthen the pathways of community care and mutual aid networks that can work to keep us not only alive but for that life to be as rich, full, and magical as we dream it can be.
As a doula, I will best serve the needs of all birthing people when participating in a co-creation of relationship, trust, and consent. This means that working together is a chance to step outside of the traditional power dynamics of colonial patriarchal practitioner/client relationship that asserts a belief that I hold information that is not available to you. Instead, we will work together to find the most affirming, sacred, and satisfying ways forward.
Please feel free to reach out if you have any curiosities.
I look forward to journeying with you.
With love and gratitude,
Em
