Finding Clarity in Your Birth Story with Team Bija
The follow up to Finding Clarity in Your Birth Plan & Care Team, team Bija comes together again to help you navigate your birth experiences, post-birth. Did things take a turn for you during birth and you have questions around what happened? We’ll discuss how to navigate when things change and give you some tools to support the important healing and processing experience.
+ We’ll discuss the power of storytelling
+ You’ll hear plenty of personal anecdotes from our work in birth
+ We’ll discuss how to leave space for birth to unfold
+ You’ll hear ideas on how to prepare for the emotional impact of birth prenatally
+ We’ll talk about birth trauma, how it unfolds, and why you may feel it even if your birth was perfect on paper
+ We’ll walk you through ways to navigate grief and loss of the birth experience you envisioned
+ You’ll hear the five stages of grief and tools to support you through each stage
This session is for anyone who is pregnant and in postpartum. Processing birth takes time and it doesn’t always hit you immediately.
If you’re pregnant, our hope is this session will prepare you mentally to navigate birth while feeling empowered and if things don’t go “as planned” that you have tools to support yourself in postpartum to feel positive and supported in your birth.
If you’re postpartum and experiencing any feelings of grief or anxiety from your birth experience, our hope is this session will allow you to feel seen and validated in your experience along with tangible tools to help you explore these feelings in a safe way so that you may see your birth as a positive, albeit tough, experience.
MEET HAYLEY OAKES, LM, CPM
Hayley began her four-year midwifery training at the National Midwifery Institute in 2011. Shortly thereafter, she had the wonderful opportunity to train with Ina May Gaskin and the midwives at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee.
Hayley Oakes has been attending births since 2010 as a doula, midwife assistant, apprentice and licensed midwife, witnessing and supporting birth in all settings: home, birth center and hospital. She has also worked as a childbirth educator and guest speaker for a number of educational institutions.
As of February 2019, Hayley became a mother herself. She resides in Highland Park, CA with her husband and daughter.
As a midwife, educator and new mother, she is committed to supporting childbearing folks in having a safe and satisfying pregnancy, birth and postpartum experience to help grow healthy happy babies.
MEET MOLLY LANDOLT
Molly is a certified birth doula and lactation counselor. She is also a Reiki I energy healer and acupressurist. As a birth worker she noticed a severance between the self and higher wisdom, with many women relying on empirical data to validate their intuition. This spurred a passion to help women understand their bodies, unearth their intuitive listening, and heal energetically. Molly lives and works in Washington DC.
MEET BETH SCHEPPKE
Beth Scheppke is a Certified Birth Doula (CHB), Full Spectrum Doula (Cornerstone), Hypnobirthing Doula (HBNY), Lactation Consultant and Childbirth Educator (DTI) based in Brooklyn, NY. By providing non-judgmental birth coaching, space holding techniques, an abundance of vetted resources and a sense of humor, Beth's goal is for her clients to feel joyfully supported, seen, and empowered throughout their birth and postpartum experience. As a service industry veteran and an all-around people person, Beth is drawn to the work for the genuine connections she makes with her clients and strives to improve birthing experiences and outcomes for families of all kinds.
Beth began her work as a doula in 2018, and has since supported dozens of folks in all boroughs of NYC, in hospitals, birth centers and at home. She relishes the unique challenges that come with every birth and feels a great deal of satisfaction in supporting folks as they work towards their birthing goals.
MEET MISTY GANT
Misty is a certified birth and postpartum doula, certified lactation counselor. She is also trained in Spinning Babies and as a newborn care specialist. She also is an integrative wellness practitioner with a particular interest in herbal medicine.
Her own experience in navigating infertility along with supporting numerous births, and witnessing the lack of care within those medical settings, spurred her on to build a space where women are held, lifted up and empowered to cross the threshold into motherhood on their own terms.
Misty splits her time between Auckland, NZ and Brooklyn, NY. She is the founder of Bija.