Last week, I had the pleasure of making a little video interview with local acupuncturist, Angela Bell. She often works with folks who are trying to conceive (including with IVF and other fertility treatments), as well as during pregnancy and generally focuses her practice on women’s health. More about her practice can be found on her Facebook and website.
One thing I so adore about Angela is her desire to connect and highlight others who are birth workers in the Boston area. She holds networking events, and has continued to host a video series on her social media pages for other birth workers to highlight their work. She’s chatted with doulas, massage therapists, midwives, yoga instructors, lactation consultants and others about the work we all do with clients.
In our 30 minute interview, we cover what it means to be a “full-spectrum” doula. I talk about why I decided to become a doula, the work I do with the Boston Doula Project, how others doing this work can best support LGBTQ+ families. We also chat about placenta encapsulation, my practice in Western herbal medicine and what it means to be an advocate for folks in all of this work. If you’re interested to get to know me a little better, check out this video interview!
Holding Our Space to Honor Pregnancy Loss
Holding Our Space is the community spearheaded by my friend and local doula Jacqui Morton. This project intends to bring more public conversation to the experiences of pregnancy loss, miscarriage and abortion, as well as space to grieve and find community and camaraderie with others who have gone through the same.
With a small grant from the Abortion Conversations Project, and collaboration with the Common Street Spiritual Center in Natick, MA, Holding Our Space will be hosting an event from June 16-18, 2016. There will be a common space for community to meet, grieve, share stories and work toward healing. Abortion doula and activist Brenda Hernandez will open the space with yoga on Friday night. Doulas will be available throughout the event to provide companionship, a listening ear or a hand to hold.
For more information, or to get involved with Holding Our Space, check out the tumblr and Facebook pages.
Simmons College holds FREE Screening of The Vessel
More about this event for those of you who use Facebook.
I will be attending this screening, representing the Boston Doula Project and speaking a little about what we do before the film. Susan Yanow, local reproductive rights activist, will also be in attendance and I am very excited to hear her speak.
About The Vessel:
Dr. Rebecca Gomperts sails a ship around the world, providing abortions at sea for women with no
legal alternative. Her idea begins as a flawed spectacle, faced with governmental, religious, and military blockade.
But with each setback she faces, Rebecca hones a more refined mission, until she realizes she can use new technologies to bypass law—and train women to give themselves abortions using World Health Organization-researched protocols with pills.
From there we witness her create an underground network of emboldened, informed activists who trust women to handle abortions themselves. Vessel is Rebecca’s story: one of a woman who hears and answers a calling, and transforms a wildly improbable idea into a global movement.