Meet Our Team
Leadership
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Christine D'Esposito (she/her) is a skilled mentor, full-spectrum doula, educator, facilitator, and consultant with over twenty years of experience in the field of birth work. She first discovered Birthing From Within in 2003 at a doula training. It was the concept of honoring birth as a rite of passage and a transformational experience for everyone involved that spoke to her most. This has driven her life's work to include supporting and celebrating the passages of fertility, birth, postpartum, coming of age, grief, loss, and the many thresholds in between. Christine is the Director of Programs, a co-owner and steward of Birthing from Within. She also works as a Doula consultant, helping to establish equitable community doula programs in hospital systems. She is a natural leader and innovator with a strength for navigating the unknown. Christine has a passion for the intersection of birth and social justice work and aspires to be an agent of change in the world. In addition to her many years of experience and the technical expertise that comes with it, Christine brings to her work a sense of playfulness paired with deep life wisdom. This unique combination of traits makes her a truly effective mentor who invites all of us to keep diving into the ongoing work and play of life’s journey.
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Lauren Vallone (they/she) is a childbirth educator, doula, interpreter, mama, and one of the co-owners of Birthing from Within.
They attended the first new Crossing the Threshold retreat in Atlanta in 2018 and continue to be transformed by the rituals, nuanced discussions, and nourishing processes BfW offers.
Lauren lives in Chicago with her partner, Robin Berryman, who is the Directory of Operations at BfW, their two cats, and two young kids. She also does work in other fields- all which have a common thread of facilitating access and holding space for others. Lauren has spent the past decade as a community ASL interpreter and several growing seasons empowering young people around food access and land sovereignty.
Lauren brings all of the wisdom of these many paths with them to their role at Birthing from Within. She is honored to steward the project of bringing Birthing from Within to all parents and families, excited to continue and expand the equity goals of this organization. and energized to situate Birthing from Within in ongoing conversations around birth and reproductive justice.
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Robin Berryman (she/her) joined the Birthing from Within team in April of 2021. In previous years, Robin has worked with various small businesses streamlining and systematizing administrative and operational tasks. She studied African American Studies at Northwestern University and has also spent time as a flight attendant, gardener, and dancer. She loves bringing tools and perspectives from seemingly disparate areas together.
At Birthing from Within Robin operates as Office Manager responding to inquiries, enrollments, course prep, and other administrative tasks. Most importantly she works to make sure that the community's needs are met.
Robin lives in Chicago with her partner and their children. She admires Birthing from Within's vision and mission and is honored to support the organization's administrative needs. Her inbox is always open!
When not working, you can find Robin reading, stomping around the city on the hunt for a snack, or watching garbage reality tv.
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Koyuki Smith (she/her) entered the birth world in 2008, after eight years as a public secondary school teacher. Since then, she has worked as a birth doula, babywearing educator, lactation counselor, childbirth educator, and BFW facilitator. She has been with BFW since 2014 and holds deep love and respect for the compassion and wisdom that BFW brings to birthing families and birth workers alike. As Editor-in-Chief at BFW, her goal is to communicate the intellectual, spiritual, and embodied richness of the BFW approach, as well as its solidarity with the struggle for universal human liberation. Koyuki is currently engaged in graduate studies at the City University of New York Graduate Center, where she is pondering the 19th century novel and the traumas of modernity. She lives in Harlem, NYC with her husband, two sons, and weird dog.
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Jessica Long (she/her) is a business leader, consultant and coach who has worked with hundreds of organizations and leaders over the past 12 years to find a balance between profit and purpose.
One of Jessica’s superpowers is helping organizations create financial abundance so they can meet their impact goals and do more good in the world, without “selling out” their purpose and heart-centered culture.
In her work with BfW, Jessica is fired up to combine this superpower with her personal passion for creating more equity and humanity in healthcare, transforming harmful practices and narratives around pregnancy and childbirth, and sharing tools for self-empowerment with business leaders who are not cisgendered heterosexual white men.
Jessica leads Birthing from Within’s innovation and strategy projects behind the scenes in thrilling areas like contractor management, customer journey design, product catalog optimization, and pricing strategy.
She lives in Portland, Oregon with her very eccentric son, husband, dog and chickens in a shabby old farmhouse and is well on her way to achieving her lifelong dream of actually becoming Pippi Longstocking.
Our Trainers
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She/they
Assistant Facilitator
Andrea is a Certified Childbirth Educator with Birthing from Within, Independent Full-Spectrum Doula, Certified Lactation Counselor, Massage + Bodywork Therapist, and mother to two children of her own.
Over two decades, she has been invited to walk alongside thousands of birthing people and new parents on different parts of their journeys. She has also had the honor of accompanying beloveds in their dying process and knows through these threshold experiences, the deep feelings and tender presence of being with someone so precious is integral to truly loving and honoring one another.
For Andrea, Birthing from Within has been a nourishing and life changing force in her life personally and professionally. She has witnessed how the BfW philosophy and skills can be transformative by creating greater resilience, capacity, and healing in families, birthgivers, birthworkers, and their communities. As a career birthworker (2003-present) and long-time member of BfW, she is keenly aware how this heart-centered, trauma-informed, embodied professional development and ongoing compassionate self-discovery, all rooted within the support of the BFW community is what so many birthworkers are longing for. It has helped make her professional offerings uniquely impactful and creatively alive enough to meet birthing families where they are while keeping her from burning out. Instead, she is ever-more fluid, connected, and inspired to share this incredible work in deeper, more meaningful ways- together.
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she/her
Lead Facilitator
Kathie Neff is a Certified Childbirth Educator with Birthing from Within and a Certified Doula with Doulas of North America (DONA) International. Kathie has enjoyed changing the conversation around birth in our culture with BfW since 2009. She lives and works in Riverside, California.
As a Facilitator, Kathie assists with mentoring BfW methods and philosophies with birth professionals online and serves as a mentor within the BfW community.
The Birthing from Within philosophy forms the foundation of her work as a mentor, teacher, and doula. Applying the concepts of archetypes, thresholds, and other concepts in her own life keeps her ready to share these life-changing tools when supporting parents in the child-birthing years.
Kathie enjoys spending time with family, reading, writing, movies, and gardening. Living the experience of community, in many variations, is her greatest joy.
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Lead Facilitator
For Christy, Birthing From Within is about remembering that becoming a parent is an ancient rite of passage. Birthing From Within offers a precious gift to parents: time and space to slow down, be, and listen within, while being witnessed and unconditionally supported. She was drawn to birthwork because of the transformative potential of the childbearing year. When she read Birthing From Within during her second pregnancy, she felt for the first time that she was not alone in this knowledge. Birthing From Within also connected with her love of art, and ignited a new passion: storytelling.
In addition to being a Birthing From Within facilitator, Christy is a bilingual (Spanish/English) birth doula, Intentional Creativity teacher, and director of a community-based nonprofit that supports expectant parents and incarcerated women in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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she/her
Lead Facilitator
Koyuki Smith entered the birth world in 2008, after eight years as a public secondary school teacher. Since then, she has worked as a birth doula, babywearing educator, lactation counselor, childbirth educator, and BFW facilitator. She has been with BFW since 2014 and holds deep love and respect for the compassion and wisdom that BFW brings to birthing families and birth workers alike. As Editor-in-Chief at BFW, her goal is to communicate the intellectual, spiritual, and embodied richness of the BFW approach, as well as its solidarity with the struggle for universal human liberation. Koyuki is currently engaged in graduate studies at the City University of New York Graduate Center, where she is pondering the 19th century novel and the traumas of modernity. She lives in Harlem, NYC with her husband, two sons, and weird dog.
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she/her
Lead Facilitator
Jamie Mossay has been serving the San Diego community as a massage therapist/bodyworker for over 20 years and started attending births as a doula in 2009. She is a mother, Birth Story Listener®, Certified Birthing From Within® Mentor and Facilitator, and a Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner and Instructor. Jamie has studied, practiced, and taught numerous modalities working primarily with pregnant, laboring, and postpartum people and their families and those who serve them. She is the creator of the DANCES® approach to prenatal bodywork and Birthing From Within’s Touch From Within course, a co-author (with Nicole Morales) and illustrator of The Breech Release: Opening Pathways for Midwifery and Prenatal Bodywork, and co-creator of the Spinning Babies Online Course Breech for Parents: which offers holistic support for navigating breech pregnancy for both parents and practitioners.
Having experienced and witnessed the power of the Birthing From Within philosophy and processes to transform one’s experience of birth, she’s thrilled and honored to serve mentors as they work with parents, and to guide their own inner journeys. She’s most inspired by how Birthing From Within embraces paradox, grey areas, and the unknown….how birth and life can demand fierce determination and deep surrender at the same time. You can learn more about her work at jamiemossay.com and thebreechrelease.com.
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Assistant Facilitator
Lou-Ann is a certified childbirth educator and facilitator with Birthing from Within. She has been pouring into growing families since 2021. Near and dear to her heart is her walk in motherhood, creative expression, topics centering maternal health justice, birthing traditions across the black diaspora, the season of postpartum healing, the role of herbs & nutrition during the birthing year and discussing the ways that childbirth and birth work can be spiritually edifying.
Lou-Ann supports expecting parents through the Well Worth Watering community. Its original mission was to share and honor powerful stories that were at risk of disappearing on the landscape of the black maternal health crisis. Today, this space continues to grow and pour into the maternal health experiences of black parents through podcast conversations and services that aim to teach and empower birthing folks along their birth journey.
Along with her husband, Lou-Ann uncovers new ways to speak life into her children’s growing hearts & minds. They live in Northern Virginia with Ossie and Ruby, a pair of sibling cats who love napping, cuddling and regularly crashing Lou-Ann’s video conferences.
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Lead Facilitator
Maeve is a Licensed Midwife, BfW Facilitator, Childbirth Educator, and Sexual Wellness Coach practicing in the SF Bay Area. She first connected with Birthing From Within in 2007 as she prepared to give birth herself. Since then she has found a home within the Birthing From Within community, philosophy and practice. Maeve loves inviting birth professionals and birthing families to listen deeply and harness their courage, wisdom, and resourceful nature, as they walk in the footsteps of beloved ancestors and forge the new paths of modern birth. Serving as a guide and ally in this process is profound, and continually takes her to places of questioning, learning, and discovery.
Maeve's areas of special interest as a Facilitator include trauma informed practice; storytelling, archetypes and symbols; somatic practice and education; and integrating BfW and midwifery. Her background prior to birth work was as a massage therapist and Cranio-Sacral therapist, bodywork teacher and Pilates teacher, all of which inform her work today.
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Assistant Facilitator
Heather bridges the science and the sacred of pregnancy and birth in her work with families. From a PhD graduate in Biology to a birth & postpartum doula and childbirth educator, she’s a lifelong learner and eager to go below the surface. Pam England’s work in birth story listening through Birth Story Medicine and BFW have transformed the way she supports families as they jump into the unknown of birth and parenthood. Heather is particularly interested in how people hold their birth/feeding/NICU stories in the months and years afterwards. She values the embodied prenatal practices of BFW in supporting people with integrating their experiences regardless of what birth and parenthood throw at them.
Outside of her work, she lives with her husband, two sons and too many cats in Montreal, Canada. She loves knitting while watching cringey British comedy.
Pam England
Pam England founded Birthing from Within in 1998. Having stepped away from BfW to pursue new projects, she now lives, writes, and paints in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is the author of Birthing From Within, The Labyrinth of Birth, and Ancient Map for Modern Birth. She is currently working on her next book, Birth Story Medicine.
Virginia Perry and Britta Bushnell worked with Pam to lay the foundations of BfW's training programs. Carrie Kenner, Erika Primozich, and Nikki Shaheed led BfW from 2018 through 2021, working tirelessly to reinvigorate the curriculum and align BfW's work with the currents of the modern birth world.
It is with enormous respect and gratitude for Pam, Virginia, Britta, Carrie, Erika, and Nikki's commitment and accomplishments that we forge ahead in the project of bringing the deep, heart-centered wisdom of Birthing from Within to parents and professionals around the world.
