Welcome to Beginnings- Whole Body Nourishment, which has been a dream of mine for many years! After spending over a decade caring for pregnant families and attending births as a midwife in Oregon and Washington, I was caught off guard by the number of physical and emotional struggles I experienced as a new mother, and was most challenged to know how and where I could go to piece myself back together. One would think that a midwife working in the field would know exactly where to turn for support, and yet it was only through trial and error that I found the resources I needed that helped me move forward. My experience shed a light on the gap I saw in maternity services that often lose sight of the parents when focusing solely on fetal and infant growth and development. Many resources for support do exist, but often in a fragmented way, unable to address the whole person, and missing a piece of the puzzle for families at a time when they may be desperately in need of a multi-faceted approach to help and healing.
After several years of slowly creating a foundation for myself as a new parent, I began to envision a landing space for families in the childbearing years, one that would offer a variety of resources to address what I, as a midwife and a mother, saw as the unique challenges of pregnancy, birth, postpartum and child-rearing. Beginnings uses a functional and holistic approach to health, viewing the individual as the expert with regard to his or her body wisdom. Beginnings is a place to turn to for resources to optimize your pregnancy and birth and give your family a healthy start, a place to find healing after birth that is available long after the “final 6-week visit”, a place to help you manage the often overwhelming transitions (both physically, mentally, and emotionally) in life. It is my passion to help soften life's challenges, empower families to find their path to nourishment, and help you to live these treasured years with tools for self-care and lasting health.
For most of my midwifery career, I had the pleasure of working with the families at Vivante Midwifery and Women's Health. In 2020, I stepped back from birth work to focus on graduate school and finished with a Master’s in Social Work (MSW). I now offer psychotherapy sessions at Spero Psychology in SE Portland. In addition to being a therapist, I am also a Somatic EMDR provider, a Certified Holistic Nutritionist, and a TRE® (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises) provider. I use these modalities to deepen client care and strengthen nervous system resilience. Additionally, I have training and a personal interest in movement therapies for stress reduction, pelvic floor support and diastasis recti care, including as a Holistic Pelvic Care™ and Fascial Flow Method™ provider. An educator at heart, I had the pleasure of serving as adjunct faculty at Bastyr University for 5 years teaching Perinatal Nutrition in the Department of Midwifery and continue to offer online continuing education classes for providers on HiveCE. Born and raised in Portland Oregon, I am still in love with this beautiful city and spend my free moments on nature outings with my husband and three kids, exploring new foods, playing music, moving, and finding quiet moments as a parent to breathe.