and also took up birth photography when my firstborn was 9 months old. I’ve immersed myself in birth culture and got myself into the birth spaces of as many other women as often as I could over these last 11 years, even going so far as to do a 9-month stint apprenticing with a home birth midwife, and becoming a holistic doula & birthkeeper.

I developed a probably above-average degree of interest in birth and midwifery,

holistic doula, birth photographer & course creator

I remember what it was like to find out I was pregnant for the first time — how excited and yet also how relatively clueless I was about what lay ahead. I remember how surprised I was by the nature of labor, even though I thought I had wrapped my head around it enough to be prepared. I remember how fuzzy and weepy and raw I felt those first weeks after my eldest’s birth.

I found my way through it all somehow, piecing it together with self-led research, some conversations with girlfriends who had kids already, a good midwife, prayer, and a little luck. With each birth, I learned more and got better at embracing and surrendering to the mystery of it all.

Birth is not so distant an experience that I can’t viscerally remember what it’s like. 

Hi, I'm Brooke

What a gift it has been that most of the births I have witnessed were “natural births” (a term that’s imperfect, but we’ll talk about that later), and that imprinted me in significant ways, even overriding the ways that culture and media had tried to throw chaotic, fear-based, ugly and unpleasant portrayals at me (as it does to all of us). Witnessing and experiencing birth occur in a normal, mostly undisturbed way has left a mark on me. I know what birth CAN be like, and I want every woman to have the option to experience it in that untainted way.

I’m also a graduate of an integrative nutrition program and former assistant to a naturopathic chiropractor, which means that the importance of nutrition and natural health remedies became an integral part of my childbearing plan.

Through it all, and perhaps most importantly, I’m a mama! A mama who wants to do her very best for her babies. From the moment I become aware there is life growing in my womb I shift into fierce mama bear mode, doing whatever I know to do that will create a gentle, healthy environment for my growing baby. I always wanted to welcome them warmly, in circumstances that protected and supported their incredible bodies and spirits, through births that honored the Creator’s phenomenal design.

Not only that, but — as a follower of Jesus, a counselor, and a naturally self-reflective person — I became curious to know what was going on in the emotional, spiritual and relational realms of the process of having babies. Truly, our whole selves are involved and impacted. Each pregnancy and birth has changed me and invited me to grow. I’ve encountered God in special ways in these places. And I know you can, too. That’s why I made Embrace Birth Journey