Balanced Beginnings Tampa

02/29/2024

For anyone needing a new birth team, USF Midwives are a wonderful choice!

12/14/2023

How beautiful to know you are not alone, especially in those midnight moments ❤️

This weekend I had the delight of getting to pray at the Norbertine Sisters on a little self led prayer retreat. What you can’t see in this picture is the 40ish sisters that live in a cloister on the other side of the stone wall. Their voices are angelic and their prayers fervent.

Attending their prayers throughout the day kept me busy- I was in awe of how frequennnt all their prayers were. But half way through the weekend I saw one prayer listed that wasn’t on my initial schedule.

Matins, 12 am.

12 am…. Is that right?!

There was a sister who was allowed out of the silence of the cloister to be my point person. She left me a picnic basket of food for each meal and showed me which prayers to read during lauds, vespers and everything in between.

I caught her eye during a meal with a question... “Sister, do you all pray every evening in the middle of the night?”
“Yes, that prayer is long- for an hour. That is when we intercede for moms. It is our motherhood hour, where we get up with you.”

She left and tears poured down my cheeks. All those nights where I felt so alone, so tired and withered… these sisters had been there awake with me. So many nights I was too exhausted to pray, too tired just trying to feed newborns and ravenous toddlers. You know those stream of nights back to back where you are begging God for just one straight rem cycle? Exhaustion gnaws at your bones with such fervor and hormones and emotions are flying like grease in a hot pan.

They were with me and I never knew it, hidden away in their quiet heroic way interceding.

It changed something in me. Motherhood has been particularly tiresome for me lately. I have had to continuously beg Jesus, “Jesus, help me be holy…” on the most basic mundane tasks. Laundry and dishes seem so painful and dreadful and awful. Frustration and impatience snaps out of me like lightning zapping whoever pokes me first. I am a mouse trap- snapping at whoever tiptoes by.

I am not alone. You are not alone. There are sisters awake in the night praying for you in your tiredness. They are awake with you in it all. They are praying for you, even in their own exhaustion, because they know you need an intercessor.😭

09/10/2023

It takes a village ❤️ Let's bring it back!

08/11/2023

Barbie is rocking labor with her awesome doula 💪

03/31/2023

Wow! This is so eye opening! I needed extra iron support during my pregnancies and so thankful for those liver pills 💪

03/08/2023

I am honored to hold the mothers I work with...and I love holding their sweet babes too ❤️

“I Won’t Hold Your Baby

…unless you ask me to, in which case, I will snuggle and cuddle your baby as much as you want me to.

I never ask my clients if I can hold their baby. In fact, I rarely ever touch my client’s baby if I can help it. Sounds sort of like the opposite of what you might picture of a doula, right? We must all be birth crazy, baby obsessed women who just want to cover babies in kisses and love and get an emotional high from attending births?

Not this doula.

I LOVE attending births. Call me crazy, but getting those middle of the night calls is one of my favorite parts of this job. I get to listen to someone at their most vulnerable times - the excitement, the hesitation, the nervousness of the unknown. Being able to provide some comfort, reassurance and continuity of care to the people I work with is so important to me (and them!)

Rushing off in the night, quietly getting myself ready, getting in the car and heading off to their home or hospital makes me feel like I’m on a secret birth mission that nobody around me knows about. When I arrive I fall as seamlessly as I can into the rhythm of the birth and start supporting my clients in whatever way they need most.

When the baby arrives I step aside and leave room for the new parents to discover their baby. I try and grab some photos (I’m not a birth photographer though, so keep your expectations in check!) and then I only step in if my client needs me for some reason.

Why does that matter? Why won’t I ask to hold your baby? Simply because: they are yours, not mine. I want you to be able to hold your baby as close as you want, for as long as you want without anyone interrupting that time. There will be enough people coming along in the next few hours and weeks who need to take that baby out of your arms for whatever reason, and tons of friends and family who will offer help by “holding the baby”.

Instead, I want to hold you, whether that’s in my arms, in my heart or my thoughts. By supporting and “holding” you, I don’t need to hold your baby. But if you ask me to, I would LOVE to.”

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03/04/2023

Who can relate?! Postpartum is a wild ride but I am here to help you through it! Doula support doesn't have to stop at birth. Reach out now for support and referrals ❤️