Thank you so much for visiting! I am thrilled to restart blogging again. Many years ago, when I had decided to "just" be a stay-at-home mOM, I started to blog. That blog is still on and is entitled My Home, My Soul as a translation from Portuguese. At that time, I was a mother to two kids: Nina, who was 7, and Gabriel, my newborn baby. when he was born we were living in an apartment in Brasilia, on a noisy street. So after a few months, we moved into a small house in a rural area in the surroundings of the capital of Brazil. That's when I started to blog,
I would write about my life as a mother, my relationship with my body and my new acquired awareness of my feminine cycles, how breastfeeding was going, and mostly I was very vocal on the importance of my staying-home statement. Because yes, it was a big thing for me at the time. My husband totally supported me in my decision and we had made a deal that I would stay home until Gabriel turned 3, so I could be 100% available for him and Nina, without having to get out there and have the obligation to make money. Nowadays I look back and I know how radical that was. I just needed it to be, for there was much healing to be done internally in all things "mother". If you're curious and would like to try out your reading in-a-latin-based language skills, please click here. My latest posts there were written in our first years while living in Malaysia.
As it turns out, when Gabriel turned 2 and a half, I was already giving birth to our 3rd child - Iuri. His pregnancy and birth are very important because that was when I finally took the courage to choose a homebirth for myself and him. He was born in the sacredness of our home into my (then) doula's hands Ritta Pinho. She had been my guide, mentor and friend for the previsous 3 years of my life. My midwife Paloma Terra (a Brazilian CPM) who had supported me throughout my pregnancy, made it to the the birth 10 minutes later. It was super fun! (So as you can see, our deal between my husband and me was prolonged because now I had another newborn to take care of). Many waters went by and exactly 2 years after that, I was giving birth to our 4th child: Benjamin. Again, I chose a homebirth with my most beloved trusted friends and guides Ritta and Paloma.
Fast forward. One year and a half after that, our family of six was embarking on our first adventure in Asia. We lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for 5 years. There I heard my calling into walking with women. I started offering Prenatal Yoga classes to friends and formed a small group in my dear friend Elizabeth Buri's studio next to our home called Our Body Space. I was invited to attend my fisrt birth as a doula. That's how I started my path in birth work and service. I went on to be certified, then traveled to Bali to join Deborah Pascali-Bonaro and Ibu Robin Lim for their Eat Pray Doula course and retreat. Ever since, I have never stopped to learn more and be fascinated about women's bodies, motherbaby relationship and the blueprint of conception, pregnancy, birth, the sacred postpartum up till the age of 3 years of age of all human beings. I have also pursued further studies with Brazilian Dr. Eleanor Luzes and her Science of the Beginning of Life and went on to be a certified Yoga Teacher with Shilpa Ghatalia at Yogshakti, KL.
While living in Malaysia, I was determined to create a community of mothers, similar to the Mothers' Circles hosted by my wonderful teacher Ritta Pinho where I felt so loved and supported throughout my childbearing years. So besides teaching regular prenatal and postnatal yoga classes and attending births as a doula, I started offering regular Mothers' Circles in my home. Any woman who felt called to sit with us was welcome. There was no feedback or judgement about what was shared, so women started feeling safe in that space to share anything they wanted to, mostly in regards to their journey as mothers. We honored all birth stories and sometimes would share about a specific theme. This work was done from my heart, and together with my own work on myself, I clearly saw that my true calling lied in midwifery ( just as it so happened my dear friend Ritta, who has become a very respected traditional midwife in Brasília).
As we knew our time as a family in Malaysia would come to an end, and that I would not be able to get the education and training I needed and desired to become a midwife, We made a wish to come back to the US (where we had lived before, and where our daughter had been born) and were elated when we learned Los Angeles, California, would be our next destination. We arrived in August 2019 in the city of angels, and life has been unfolding beautifull ever since. Our kids are now aged 18 (almost 19 now), 11, 9 and 7.
I turned 41 a month ago and was blessed to be in Sedona, Arizona just before that to be with my teachers and mentors Maryn Green and Margo Blackstone from Indie Birth for their Midwifery Skills Workshop. What an experience! A few days earlier, I learned I had been awarded a full scholarship for their 2-year Midwifery School Program starting next July. Please visit the IBMS site here to learn more. So that's how things are rolling!
I'm so grateful to share with you all that I feel ready now to take on clients as a doula here in Los Angeles, as I slowly prepare to one day serve women, their babies and families from my heart as an independent midwife, walking with them from womb to tomb. Thank you for being here!