Welcome!
My name is Taylar! This photo right here is of me and my little girl, who is invested in this work just as much as I am 🙂 She loves playing with birth props and I’m grateful to normalize how amazing pregnancy and natural birth at home is for her big imagination!
I became a birth and postpartum doula with A Life of Peace and Wellness Education Institute in Houston, Texas in 2019 after a friend had asked me to be her doula. It was truly life-changing to gather with such a brilliant and grounded group of women and birth workers. It was the first time I walked into a house and smelled essential oils and vegan food all about, coming from all different directions. This was an introduction to a new way of living. A way that my soul needed to learn more about. Here I was introduced to reiki for the first time as well, and immediately received my first and second level attunements with ALOP, following right after training. That Fall, I took in all of the reading and podcasts I could about the beautiful rite of passage that is pregnancy, birth and postpartum.
The pandemic then began. Little did I realize, the free time I had at home with my toddler and our family would completely change the direction of my doula experience, and life as I knew it. I had woken up and began to see things I had never seen before. The truth.
Going into my first hospital birth as a doula (Fall 2020), I trusted the books I had read and stories I had listened to by granny and elder midwives on podcasts and old interviews. I was recounting the trust in birth that Ina May, Michele Odent and the other wise birth witnesses I had been studying about had. My intuition was aligned and I was ready to support this mother, father and baby. I understood that birth mostly always works, and that the system often disrupts the process before supporting it. This was proven true with each birth I attended. I quickly became saddened by the care the mothers I was supporting were receiving and realized I didn’t have the capacity to be in this space any longer. I knew I would not change the system from the inside out, and so when I conceived my second child, I planned to have a home birth with midwifery care. This experience inspired and continued to water and grow my passion for protecting home birth and the art of midwifery.
The love, care and guidance I received from my midwife was a lightbulb moment in time for me. I became a better me as I was led by a wise woman. What I had been feeling all along was right. The medical system is not set up to nourish the mother and offer true prenatal care. They are there for high-risk emergencies and are amazing at what they do. We are thankful for them and we need them. Yes to it all, and, this was what I had always been searching for. Nutrition guidance, birth processing, respecting pregnancy and birth. Loving on this unique mother and baby. This is walking with the mother. This is midwifery care, and my heart calls to it.
The healing birth of my son took place in 2022 and since then I have tended to my family and stabilized our lives. Now, the Spring of 2024, I am ready to reenter birth work and postpartum care. I am currently serving the Ocean County, NJ area in postpartum doula care, childbirth education and reiki therapy. Some of the things I love outside of birth work are drinking a hot cup of coffee curled up with a good rom-com or birthy book, traveling to visit my dearest friends, and creating fun memories with my kiddies. Thank you for being here and I look forward to this new chapter as I simultaneously embark on my slow path to independent midwifery.
