About Christine

I first became inspired to do birth work after supporting a close friend through her pregnancy and helping her raise her daughter through infancy until two years of age. It was then that I first experienced the beauty and awe of the motherbaby bond. I was amazed to witness the innate intelligence that mothers and babies share in their deep connection to each other. I continued working with families and children as a nanny for the next six years. It was here that I truly learned the value of outside support and a family that works together. It was after attending another friends’ birth that I began to listen to and answer the call within me to work with women in the context of birth. I completed my birth doula certification in 2001 at Birthwingway College of Midwifery in Portland, OR and became certified as a postpartum doula in 2002 through DONA. During these trainings, I was introduced to the book “Birthing From Within,” written by Pam England. I felt a deep connection with the ideas and philosophies presented in this book and went on to become a Birthing From Within childbirth mentor and I currently mentor classes in the Portland area.

For many years, my personal interests have revolved around ritual and rites of passage cross culturally. I have studied and practiced with Native American teachers and healers since 1999 in California and Oregon. I have also received a certificate in herbal studies at the East West School of Herbal Medicine in Santa Cruz, Ca. and a certificate in hot stone application at Breitenbush hot springs in Oregon. I hold a Bachelor’s in Science degree at Portland State University majoring in Communication Studies with an emphasis in Family Communication.

My interests include creating community through music and art, singing and drumming, gardening, spending time in nature, yoga, bike riding and event production.

What is Womyns Ways?

Womyn’s Ways or Women’s Ways of Knowing refers to the creativity and intuition that women innately have. Most women use it every day in their life, perhaps without even knowing or noticing. It comes out in all sorts of ways from caretaking to practical resourcefulness and it is the same knowing that helps women to birth their babies. I do not have this, you say? Just because you have not fine tuned your skills does not mean that they are not there. Perhaps you just stopped listening. In today’s fast paced world built on reason and logic we are often over-stimulated with left brain, logical tasks and reasoning. Sometimes it seems difficult to access that internal and reflective part of our selves. Your knowing comes from a place deep down inside of you. It is from this place within you that your Deepest Question arises. What is it that YOU need to know to give birth? What is it that YOU already KNOW? Women give birth with their body minds, the creative and intuitive part of themselves, not from their minds of logic and reason.. I invite you to sink deeper into your body mind as part of your preparation for your journey. From this place a sense of trust and confidence arises in yourself as a parent that you will embrace in your birth process and the many years of parenting to come.