About Bri

Soon after I tell people that I am a doula, many people ask why I am so interested in birth when I have never had children before! This has been a growing passion for me over the years and I am super excited to be pursuing it in the Grand Rapids area.

I grew up in the California Bay Area. Throughout middle school and high school, I knew many family friends who were pregnant and/or breastfeeding and I was so intrigued. Rather than asking the typical questions of “what is the baby's name?”, I found myself always asking, “how does breastfeeding work?!”, “so you can fully sustain your baby just through breastfeeding?”, “but how does labor affect that?!”. From an early age, it was very clear that I was given an innate passion for all things women, pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care. 

I never saw myself pursuing something in the medical profession because I thought I would thrive in a different context. Going into college, I wanted to pursue a career that would allow me to support people emotionally, learn through people’s culture + context, and be with people in the beautiful and hard parts of day in and day out life. Because of that, I pursued a Communication Studies degree at Azusa Pacific University in the Los Angeles area. 

I had the privilege of going overseas multiple times throughout my college career and it completely shifted my heart regarding culture and being a listener and an advocate for others. 

When I was in my last year of college, my boss at the time introduced me to the idea of being a doula. I had never even heard of the term before, but I was immediately intrigued. Using my passion for pregnancy + birth in a context where I would be able to emotionally and physically support women and their families. Could this be real?! I had fully found my match and I wanted to find a way to mix all of these new passions together in one. 

After graduating from college, I decided to move to Istanbul, Turkey to work with refugees who were relocating to the city for refuge from war torn countries. While I was living abroad, I became certified as a birth + postpartum doula, breastfeeding counselor, and childbirth educator. In the three years that I was abroad, I taught prenatal classes to African women living in a country wrought with racist tendencies, especially in the hospital context. 

I worked with 40+ Syrian, African, Afghan, + American women through breastfeeding counseling and partnered with numerous expat women as their doula in Turkish hospitals. The city of Istanbul has a 60% cesarean rate! While working in a Turkish context I learned a lot of different skills that I think really set me apart in my passion. I learned how to be a close emotional support for my friends who were far away from their immediate families while living overseas. I grew in my ability to advocate in an appropriate way for women where the hospital structure is largely against them. And I learned how to work within a cross-cultural experience while speaking the various languages in the hospital context as well as learning to balance and honor the cultures around me. 

A lot of my philosophy derives from these experiences that I have had overseas. As I have continued to support women in the Grand Rapids area, I have seen my desire to support women as a sister in their birth. I want to be a safe person to talk to throughout your entire pregnancy + birth process. I desire to empower women and families in the tough moments. 

Simply put, I want you to receive the care you need through this process of change. I want to be able to use my strengths to help you to feel heard and known. I am really excited to meet you and learn how I can best support you in this journey!