Embrace the snow and document your changing body in the snow filled Rocky Mountains just outside of Denver, CO

Pregnancy and birth after loss is bittersweet. While there is extreme joy in celebrating the new life growing in your belly, or now in your arms, it is not without the extreme grief of the life that is no longer with us. It can feel isolating and confusing to have conflicting feelings at the same time. However I also believe that it is HONEST and human to experience and be aware of the plethora of emotions that life…and loss…can bring.

My role as your doula extends beyond education, empowerment and documentation and into this precious time as you ease into parenthood. To cook in your kitchen as you relax with your little. To fill your home and your senses with the warm smells of roasting vegetables. To hand you a bowl of love that warms your heart and revitalizes your soul. THIS is what postpartum days should look like.

FaceTime Photos during times of quarantining.

While I was blown away by so many of the images in the collection, I wanted to share some of the images that really took my breath away, jumped off the page and spoke to me. If you feel inspired as well, click on the image to dive deeper into each artists portfolio and maybe even chose to follow them on social media.

This strong, single, blind mother requested to “see” her baby as he crowned, reaching down to feel. And when the time came, he decided to enter this world with one push the midwives at Denver Health helped her catch him, bringing him up to her chest with grace. He instinctually nestled into her chest and reached up to touch her face, her nose, her lips as she exclaimed, “YES, that is my face!”

It is 2019’s National Midwifery Week (#NMW2019) and I have spent the last several days looking through some of the most incredible images of midwives walking the journey with birthing families. Reading some of the most empowering, ovary-throbbing and tear-jerking birth stories you could imagine.

Food can have astounding healing powers to the body, spirit and soul. In addition to its nourishing aspects, it has now become a traditional and familiar part of their story. A detail that will so deeply be engrained in their memories that as they move through their lives, raising their children, the moment they smell it again they will instantly be brought back to these two transformational days. Days where their worlds turned on its axis and their family grew.

Joshua’s birth changed my life. His mama, a doula herself, trusted me very early in my birth photography/videography career to document her story. While I will always be learning, exploring and adjusting my methods and services, I was still so new and not completely sure of my true role in the birth space. With my degree in photography, the camera was my comfort zone - but I was still very much learning the ins and outs of the birth space.

Her sweet baby was born in the water, en caul (which means that the amniotic sac was still intact) and together with her husband, they gently and confidently lifted her to the surface, expertly and intuitively removing the caul from her face. Baby Ryan was born into the arms of a family that will accept her for everything that she is and will nurture her as she becomes anything she desires.

Nine female souls and nine male souls took their first breath in my presence this year. The sheer overwhelm of that last sentence just makes my heart explode with joy. This is an honor that I don’t take lightly. One that I hold the utmost respect for. I am forever grateful to you.

Peaceful, calm, and supported home birth of third child in Parker, Colorado.