About Me

I am a birth and postnatal doula (a trained birth companion and supporter after birth) who moved from England, UK to Wellington, NZ in 2002. Doulas are fairly unknown of here in NZ, however, I have been working postnatally within the Wellington community and hope to support at births again in the future when family life allows and when there are other doulas to provide back-up for me.

Whilst in the UK I was fortunate enough to meet up with a lovely group of like-minded doulas and together we set up a network of doulas - called "Doula UK" - see www.doula.org.uk. It is good to still be involved with this network, even from this far away (such is the power of the internet!) because I am fairly isolated now from other doulas. However, I have met some wonderful midwives here in Wellington, who have been very encouraging to me.

Back in London I worked voluntarily with women from Holloway Prison who were facing pregnancy and childbirth whilst serving their sentences/on remand (see www.birthcompanions.org.uk).

I used to attend the infant massage sessions within the prison and was inspired to become a qualified infant massage instructor myself, so I trained with the International Association of Infant Massage (IAIM) in London (see www.iaim.net). IAIM has chapters all over the world in more than 30 countries and I was fortunate that there is a NZ one (based in Auckland - see www.nz.iaim.net) so I have been able to meet up with other infant massage instructors. I also offer group and private classes in the Wellington area.

In November 2004, I gave birth at home, in water, to my first child, Zoe, with the wonderful support of my two homebirth midwives and my husband, Graham. Since then I have been less able to do doula work or take infant massage classes, but will do so again when time and family life allows.

At the beginning of 2007 I began my training to become a calmbirth® practitioner and I qualified in September 2008. I am very excited about this part of my journey.

I hope to be running calmbirth® classes from May 2009 after my maternity leave following the birth of my 2nd baby. Phoebe was born in water at home at the end of January 2009, after another very gentle, and calm labour.