Courtney Leigh Stern, Doula
© 2008 QStern Photography
"Woman is the First Environment. In pregnancy, our bodies sustain life. At the breast of women, the generations are nourished. From the bodies of women flows the relationship of those generations both to society and the natural world. In this way is the earth our mother, the old people said. In this way, we as women are earth."
- Katsi Cook, Mohawk healer, midwife and environmental health researcher
I was born and raised in Santa Cruz, CA and moved to the east coast in 2004 to attend Villanova University. There I completed a BA in Psychology, graduating summa cum laude in the spring of 2007. During the years that I attended Villanova I also began to pursue my long-held interest in working with women during pregnancy and childbirth by working at The Birth Center in Bryn Mawr, PA. As I interacted with the women and families that received care at The Birth Center, and entered the records of the births that women had there, my knowledge about the emotional and physiological aspects of childbirth grew. I married my adventurous and wonderfully talented husband in the fall of 2007, and in December of 2008 we were blessed with the arrival of our first child. The pregnancy, labor, and birth that I experienced affirmed for me everything that I already believed about women and our ability to carry and birth our babies. Our son was born at home under the watchful guidance of midwives Christy Santoro, CPM and Beth Curtis, CPM. In addition to those women I was lovingly tended to by my husband, my father, and my mother-in-law, while they all gave me plenty of space to do the work of bringing my son into the world on my own. I felt everything my body did to move the baby down and out, and it was the most focused and exhilarating experience of my life. In June of 2010 I moved back to Santa Cruz with my family, and two months later my husband, Joscelyn Grote, LM, CPM, and Kelly Olmstead, LM, CPM watched, held, and gently coached me as I gave birth to a daughter at home. During this experience I was again a witness of the power and perfection of natural birth. Having been given these gifts, I feel that it is not only my duty but my privilege to support women as they create the birth experience that is right for them. What began as an interest in midwifery over ten years ago has now become a passion for educating and empowering women about their choices in childbirth. I trained with Birth Arts International to become a Labor Support Doula, and am currently completing the steps toward certification. I am also currently enrolled in an Advanced Women's Herbal and Aromatherapy course. My aim is to ensure that the women I work with live and birth with awareness: awareness of their options, their strength, their innate abilities, and the inner guidance that is inherent within them as women and as mothers.
Courtney Stern, Doula
Inner Light Birth Services
courtney@innerlightbirthservices.com
(610) 420-8701
photos on this page courtesy of QStern Photography
