In 2004, after my sixth and youngest child had finished with breastfeeding, I began to feel the need for something to do that was meaningful to me and helpful to others. I was also feeling the pinch of needing to find a stream of income to help out the family finances.
I decided that I should look around and see what I was already skilled in and find a way to utilise it. Of course the first thing that came to my mind was all of the information I had collected from almost ten years of being pregnant and breastfeeding. I had collected books and information from all sorts of places as well as having plenty to share from my own experiences.
I was active on many online forums and groups, and I found over and over that new mums who were looking for advice wanted someone to help them sort out all of the confusing information that they were receiving. There was no shortage of information out there but it was a confusing task to sort through.
I had the advantage of the advice of my own heroic mother, who naturally birthed and breastfed myself and seven siblings. I also had a library of books on natural birth, breastfeeding and natural parenting which was becoming useful as people were coming to me for advice about all of these things.
In 2005 I was reading a novel when I encountered the word “doula” used to describe someone who was supporting a birth. This was a new word for me. I went looking for information and found several courses training doulas.
I chose to train with Optimum Birth run by Dr. Christine Vose. I completed my training in 2006 and began the work that I do today, both supporting women in labour, doing birth education and writing about it.
Being a doula has given me some of my life’s most rewarding experiences outside of birthing my own babies, which nothing can compare to. I love it!
I believe that a natural birth unencumbered by intervention is the ideal for every woman, and it is what I hope to help my clients achieve. However, even if a completely natural birth isn’t an option, what is possible is to make it a positive experience.
My goal is to empower you, through the knowledge you find here, to have a positive birth experience and ultimately a positive parenting experience. Positive parenting, I believe begins as naturally as possible, with allowing your body to birth your baby intuitively, and thus fostering the idea that you can intuitively parent your children and naturally know what your child needs.
My parenting philosophy, and that of my husband is:
-Start as naturally as possible, and thereafter whenever there is a parenting choice choose the one that feels the most natural. Thus I believe in and have practiced(when possible), natural childbirth, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby-wearing. I do not practice nor believe in letting a baby cry it out, we do not believe spanking is useful as a form of child-rearing and we practice attachment parenting.
-We believe in raising my own kids, thus myself and my husband both work from home so that we can spend as much time as possible on the spot, so to speak. We know this is not possible for everyone, but that is the choice we made. Children live in the now and the time you spend with them now is the most influential.
-We are spiritual but do not believe in nor follow organised religions. My personal feeling is that there is something lost in translation between spirituality and organised religion.
-We try to inspire our children to behave as we believe is appropriate, rather than forcing them through fear of punishment. We believe that children learn best through logical consequences, and through positive reinforcement.
-We are not perfect parents and we know it. Mistakes are made and have to be remedied, but we know that feeling guilty about those mistakes is counterproductive. What happens next is what matters most. Love and an apology work wonders.
-We encourage diversity and have a wide variety of friends and acquaintances of various cultures, sexual orientations and backgrounds. We believe that children should be brought up to respect and value different generations.
-We enjoy organic gardening and raise our own chickens, we also try to eat organic whenever we can. We encourage our children to be part of the tending and caring for our garden and animals as there are so many good life lessons to be learned from these activities.
Smiles 
Priscilla (Cilla) Stevens
Priscilla Stevens