All families, all births.
MyBirth finds its foundation in our work as professional birth doulas. Beginning with the premise that all families deserve unequivocal support during pregnancy and childbirth, birth doulas are experts that offer physical, informational, and emotional support through the journey to parenthood. Whether welcoming your first child or adding a new sibling, your doula will share knowledge about birth options, resources, comfort measures, and the transition to life with your new baby. The MyBirth doulas believe that there is no "right way" to have a baby, just what is right for you; whether at home or in the hospital, unmedicated or with an epidural, vaginal or cesarean birth, our goal is that you feel confident and supported in your birth choices.
MyBirth Doula services include but are not limited to:
Five Prenatal Consultations
Unlimited support via phone/text/email
Support through all of labor
Two Postpartum Consultations
Access to our extensive library of client resources
Guaranteed back-up coverage from MyBirth doulas
Discounts on all education classes including childbirth education and lactation
One free prenatal yoga class in the MyBirth Community Studio
Our Birth Doula Team
Emily Bruno, BIS, CPD, CBE
Emily is a trained, professional birth doula (previous ALACE/ToLabor doula training and certification with Thérèse Hak-Kuhn, as well as full-spectrum with Doula Trainings International), practicing since January, 2007, and is the founder and owner of MyBirth. As a current student at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, she is completing her Masters of Science in Midwifery, and will practice as a Certified Midwife in Virginia. Emily draws on her knowledge and experience to provide physical, emotional, and informational support to birthing people and their partners as they navigate welcoming their new babies. With an educational background in Interdisciplinary Studies as well as Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Emily integrates concepts of intersectional feminism, reproductive justice, and person-centered care. She has completed trainings and workshops for breastfeeding education, Perinatal Loss and Grief, acupressure for pregnancy and birth with Dr. Keith Bell, and Spinning Babies Techniques. Emily's personal experience includes her own homebirth cesarean in 2008, her hospital VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) in 2013, her eight years facilitating the MyBirth VBAC & Cesarean Support Group, and offering private VBAC consults. Emily believes that everyone deserves the opportunity to birth in a peaceful and supportive environment, and has a particular passion for the prevention of unnecessary cesareans and the access to and promotion of safe VBAC. When not attending births or slogging her way through pathophysiology homework, Emily can be found reading, riding horses, traveling, or gardening.
Emily’s fees for birth doula support: $1700 for hospital support, $1500 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Emily's doulamatch profile, where you can find testimonials and info on availability, and contact her directly.
Sara Krivanec, BA, CD(DTI), CLC
Sara holds a Bachelor’s in Gender and Women’s Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, and is a certified birth doula with DTI (Doula Trainings International). She has been attending births since 2001. She came to this work after her own cesarean, wanting to support and educate others in understanding their options and facilitating a positive birth experience. She went on to give birth twice by VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) and has attended almost 400 births in her 20+ year career. Although her passion is educating clients about low-intervention childbirth and VBAC, she supports people through any type of birth and provides evidence-based information so that they can make decisions that they feel good about. It’s so important that the person giving birth feels heard and knows that their decisions are respected no matter what. Sara’s additional trainings include Penny Simkin, Ina May Gaskin, Spinning Babies, Acupressure with Dr. Keith Bell, and ALACE (ToLabor) doula training and certification with Thérèse Hak-Kuhn. She also has extensive training in Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADs), perinatal loss, and offers private VBAC consults. She co-facilitates monthly PMAD and postpartum/new parent support groups at MyBirth. Sara is a Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC) and has recently begun her studies and clinical hours to become an IBCLC (International Board Certified Lactation Consultant). She also provides breastfeeding consults and teaches MyBirth’s lactation classes and comprehensive childbirth education class, My Birth Class. Sara enjoys building strong relationships with her clients and sees every day that birth can be healthy and normal. Preparing with an open heart and mind, she sees couples excited and ready to give birth. Sara is the mother of three; two young adults and one teen and is so proud to support them in their love of visual arts, music, ASL, theater, and soccer. Her own hobbies include reading mysteries, learning everything she can about lactation, attending theatre productions, and making herbal medicine.
Sara’s fees for birth doula support: $1700 for hospital support, $1500 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Sara's doulamatch profile, where you can find testimonials and info on availability, and contact her directly.
Rachel Brown, CD (DONA)
Rachel is a certified birth doula trained and certified through DONA International. Having clinically assisted births for over 10 years, she witnessed first-hand the need of basic support for the birthing parent and their families. She advocates for finding your ideal birth team whether you’re a first-time parent wary of the uncharted territory of labor or a seasoned parent hoping for a better birth experience. From her own experiences providing family planning and gender-affirming care, she believes in serving all humans, all families, through all phases of pregnancy and reproductive experiences. It is her greatest passion to provide a safe and familiar connection to LGBTQIA+ families seeking pregnancy and birth support. Her additional trainings include: Perinatal Loss and Grief, Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders, and Breast/Chestfeeding education.
Rachel and her wife moved to Richmond in 2018, became foster parents in 2020, and have the joy of parenting two sons. When she’s not at a birth, she loves hot yoga, exploring hiking trails, baking, and movie nights at home cuddling her pets and family.
Rachel’s fees for birth doula support: $1700 for hospital support, $1500 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Rachel's doulamatch profile, where you can find testimonials and info on availability, and contact her directly.
Keisha Graham, CPD, CBE
Reproductive Justice has been the core of Keisha’s professional and personal life. As a professionally trained full spectrum doula (DTI, ToLabor, Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project) and childbirth educator (MyBirth), she has spent over the last 13 years learning and advocating for the rights for all people to have safe and satisfying reproductives experiences and outcomes. Keisha has supported births in-person and virtually all over the country, with families of all variations, and understands the nuance of those dynamics. Keisha is a forever student of life and embraces how each new experience with a new family means a new personal perspective on how support can look different in a variety of ways.
Personally Keisha is a mother, partner, daughter, sister, friend, and lover of all thing A.S.O.I.A.F, traveling and sweets.
Keisha’s fees for birth doula support: $1700 for hospital support, $1500 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Keisha's doulamatch profile, where you can find testimonials and info on availability, and contact her directly.
Gabrielle Wade, BS, PD, PPD (DONA)
Gabrielle has been attending births for 6 years and comes to MyBirth under two doula trainings, Shafia Monroe Consulting and DONA. She has a passion for birth work, lactation support and believes it is a basic right that all people deserve to have a well rounded, informed, and sacred birth and postpartum experience. Her passion for birth work is evident in her ability to connect, recognize, and advocate the needs of her clients. Empowering and supporting women during this intimate experience are fundamentals to the goal of a healthy mama, heathy baby dynamic. Women simply need the space to be heard and protected, which in turn will answer the call to reducing negative birth outcomes, especially in the minority community. She also has a holistic approach to pregnancy, labor, and postpartum care, incorporating her training and knowledge of the power of essential oils. Gabrielle has personal birthing experiences in a hospital and home birth setting delivering her two children, one son and daughter, using Hypnobirthing techniques. Gabrielle enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, volunteering with community organizations, enjoying a good brunch with friends, and binging a great Netflix or reality series (thanks, COVID!).
Gabrielle’s fees for birth doula support: $1700 for hospital support, $1500 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Gabrielle’s doulamatch where you can find testimonials and info on her availability, and contact her directly.
Katherine Ward Marsh, PD
Katherine is a ToLabor trained professional doula who is currently working towards her certification, she expects to complete it by December, 2021. She is also a postpartum doula, having completed trainings with both DONA and Cornerstone. Katherine’s passion to pursue birth work full time grew from the birth of her own daughter, and becoming a first time parent in the middle of a global pandemic. She believes that feeling confident in yourself, your birthing team and your body makes all the difference when it’s time to welcome your baby and pays special attention to her client’s mental health throughout both their third and fourth trimesters. Katherine has drawn inspiration and experience from her time growing up in the Netherlands when it comes to birth and parenting, where midwifery and home birth is integrated in the national healthcare system; Katherine is fluent in both Dutch and English, and is working towards proficiency in Spanish. Her goal as a doula is to ensure your comfort and safety, and nourish your confidence as you embark on this exciting chapter as a team! When Katherine is not at a birth, she enjoys spending time with her partner and their daughter, tending to her garden, playing with her dogs and listening to true crime podcasts.
Katherine’s fees for birth doula support: $1700 for hospital support, $1500 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Katherine’s Doulamatch where you can find testimonials , info on her availability, and contact her directly.
Sarah Fielding, BS, CLC, PD
Sarah is a toLabor trained doula of five years, and is currently completing professional certification, and holds a Bachelors in Music Education from Virginia Commonwealth University. Having experienced a wide variety of outcomes welcoming her own four children - one unmedicated hospital birth, one home birth transfer cesarean, and two home birth VBACs (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) - Sarah has learned there is no one right way to give birth, just what’s right for each parent and baby. She believes every family deserves unwavering support during the birth year. As a mother to four children, Sarah has nearly seven years of personal breastfeeding experience and is a Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC) through the Healthy Children’s Project. She enjoys co-facilitating MyBirth VBAC and cesarean support group and loves holding space for parents’ stories and providing support on their healing journey, and trained in Acupressure for Birth Attendants with Dr. Keith Bell. Sarah also has extensive professional experience in facilitating parenting and breastfeeding social media groups. In addition to birth work, Sarah is the MyBirth office manager. She enjoys growing her community by volunteering as board treasurer at her children’s school, and while at home loves snuggling her Yorkie, cultivating her growing houseplant collection, and cooking for family and friends.
Sarah’s fees for birth doula support: $1700 for hospital support, $1500 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Sarah’s Doulamatch where you can find testimonials , info on her availability, and contact her directly.
Melanie Conn, MM, PD
Professionally trained as a birth doula in 2016 by the beloved and revered Thérèse Hak-Kuhn of ToLabor, Melanie (she/her) began attending births very shortly thereafter and has been a changed person ever since.
Much of Melanie's birth-keeping has been done in a volunteer capacity as a pro-bono birth doula supporting primarily BIPOC and historically marginalized families through pregnancy and birth. As a privileged cishet white person Mel believes deeply in the giving of herself in this way, and her paid doula work begets the ability to keep giving support where this work is arguably most desperately needed and deserved.
Having been a doula for two years prior to becoming a mother herself, a humbling five years later her doula work is now greatly informed by her own perinatal experiences and obstacles, particularly in the realms of birth plans changing, infant feeding plans changing, and the importance of the diagnosis and treatment of postpartum mood disorders - spoiler alert: shame has no place in any of it.
Melanie's goal in supporting her clients is to build their confidence in the decisions they're asked to make throughout the whole perinatal period while simultaneously garnering their utmost confidence in her ability to amply support them physically and emotionally in labor, birth, and early postpartum. It is her objective to meet each family where they are and bolster them all along the path to meeting their new baby.
Melanie has received additional training in Spinning Babies technique and Hypnobirthing for birthworkers, and is also trained as a postpartum doula with Birth Advocacy Doula Training in order to be able to offer extended care for her birth doula clients once their babies are earthside!
A mother of one, in her 'free time' Mel likes to sleep in, rerun the washing machine, and double-cleanse her face. Just kidding..... kinda.....She's really into growing exotic plants, building various contraptions with her kiddo, cuddling her cats Emma, Bug, and Wren, and using her masters degree in flute performance as often as possible.
Melanie’s fees for birth doula support: $1700 for hospital support, $1500 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Melanie’s Doulamatch where you can find testimonials , info on her availability, and contact her directly.
Tiera Trapp, CMA, PD
Tiera is a full spectrum professional birth doula, having completed trainings with both ToLabor and Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings. She has been attending births for three years and expects to complete her certification in 2022. Tiera’s passion for birth work began after working four years in women’s health as a medical assistant, and seeing so many women and pregnant people needing emotional support and proper knowledge about the life changing experience they were about to go through. Before joining the team at MyBirth, Tiera supported families through the Richmond Doula Project. Tiera would like to support all birthing people and families as they embark on this new journey. Tiera is originally from a small town not too far from Myrtle Beach South Carolina. Her favorite past times are being outdoors, traveling, and spending time with her family.
Tiera’s fees for birth doula support: $1700 for hospital support, $1500 for repeat clients. If you’d like to chat with Tiera about birth support, please contact her at ttrapp.mybirthrva@gmail.com, or complete and submit the MyBirth Contact/Inquiry form.
Jesse Waller, PD, LMT
Jesse (she/they) is a professional birth doula (toLabor), postpartum doula (Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings), certified Integrative Lactation and Feeding Specialist (Manhattan Birth),and licensed massage therapist dedicated to providing trauma-informed, compassionate, and evidence based care. Her journey to birth work began with attending the labor of a close friend, where a love of learning (and over preparation) led her to begin searching out how to best provide support during birth. That first experience created a passion for supporting all genders, all bodies, and all family structures through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
Jesse’s personal experiences with birth include a planned home birth that shifted to a hospital induction and unplanned cesarean, followed by a home birth VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean.) Having walked such varied paths, they have gained the understanding that the best birth outcomes are achieved when each person is able to make autonomous and informed decisions about their own care. She especially values the opportunity to support queer and trans families, as well as birthing people seeking a VBAC. Their additional areas of professional development include Spinning Babies techniques, pre- and post- pregnancy and infant massage, and abortion doula training through Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings.
Originally from the west coast, Jesse lives in Richmond, VA with her two children, two loud dogs, and several houseplants in various states of aliveness. Her hobbies include baking, eating baked goods, and re-reading the same emotional support comfort novels while being constantly interrupted.
Jesse’s fees for birth doula support: $1700 for hospital support, $1500 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Jesse’s Doulamatch where you can find testimonials, info on her availability, and contact her directly.
Colleen McDonald, BSW, PD
Colleen is a professional birth doula trained by Birth Arts International and is located in Richmond, VA with her husband, son, and two dogs. Colleen holds a Bachelor of Social Work from Virginia Commonwealth University, is a certified VBAC Doula through The VBAC Link, and is a Placenta Encapsulation Specialist through The Association of Placenta Preparation Arts. Colleen has volunteer experience as a doula with Community of Hope, a CASA Guardian ad litem, and a domestic violence/ sexual assault hospital advocate with RHART/ YWCA. Colleen has trauma informed training and is comfortable working with clients from a variety of backgrounds or mental health diagnoses.
Colleen takes an individualized approach to supporting birthing people through every stage of pregnancy, labor, and delivery. Colleen is trusting of birth and our bodies to safely bring babies earth-side. She utilizes hypno-birthing techniques like breath work, visualization, and education when working with birthing people and their partners. Colleen is also certified through the Association of Placenta Preparation Arts to offer encapsulation services.
Colleen is happy to be back in Richmond after time spent living in Washington, DC, and Austin. In her free time, Colleen enjoys pole, kayaking, baking, and giving up on craft projects.
Colleen’s fees for birth doula support: $1700 for hospital support, $1500 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Colleen’s Doulamatch where you can find testimonials, info on her availability, and contact her directly.
Bianca Gandarias, BA, PD, NC, CVD(TVL)
Bianca is a professionally trained ToLabor birth doula and certified VBAC doula through The VBAC Link. She has always had a profound fascination and respect for pregnancy and birth, which was fortified after experiencing the birth of her daughter. The transition to motherhood, in combination with her passion for supporting and improving maternal health outcomes drove her to pursue birth work full time. Bianca believes that all birthing people deserve to not only have a safe and healthy pregnancy and birth, but one in which they feel empowered and heard. She believes that being chosen to join a birth team is a true privilege, and she is so deeply grateful to provide support, care, knowledge and encouragement to the families that grant her this honor.
Bianca speaks Spanish proficiently, holds a Bachelor’s in Communication and History from Boston College, and a certification as a Nutrition Consultant from Bauman College of Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts. She is passionate about continuing education and is not a Certified VBAC Doula through the VBAC Link, and is working to complete her Childbirth Education certfication.
After living up and down the Eastern Seaboard, Bianca found a true home in Richmond in 2018, where she lives with her husband and daughter. When she’s not nerding out about birth or caring for her toddler, she loves yoga, going for walks, exploring new restaurants, traveling, cooking and watching her comfort show Gilmore Girls (this was her early labor activity).
Bianca’s fees for birth doula support are $1400 for hospital support, $1200 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Bianca’s Doulamatch where you can find testimonials, info on her availability, and contact her directly.
Dana Tatum, BA, PD
Dana (she/her) is a toLabor professionally trained birth doula currently pursuing certification. She is honored and excited to be joining MyBirth as a new doula in 2023/24.
Her call to birth work is shaped by her experiences as a female in our current healthcare system through which she learned the power of being informed, questioning authority, advocacy, and the importance of self care. She believes that when people are educated around their healthcare, they then have the agency to make the decisions that are right for them.
Her own journey to motherhood was a deeply challenging but healing experience. During her pregnancy she dealt with her fears by attempting to learn everything one could possibly know about birth. She soon realized that was not possible and that she could lean on the support of her doula. It was through the journey of pregnancy and the unmedicated birth of her son that she relearned to trust in her body. She hopes to be able to help guide others towards their own empowered birth experience- whatever that looks like for them. Her experience with meditation and hypnobirthing in pregnancy was profoundly helpful. She would love to encourage clients to prepare themselves mentally for birth as much as they do physically. She has completed additional training with Spinning Babies techniques and can offer professional birth, prenatal and postpartum photography. Her photography work is primarily focused on documenting close and intimate moments between parents and their children.
In a previous life, Dana graduated from FIT in New York City and worked in fine jewelry production, design and sales. Some of Dana’s favorite things include singing loudly while driving, flowers, cloud watching, homemade soup, and dancing to ridiculous songs with her young son.
Dana’s fees for birth doula support are $1400 for hospital support, $1200 for repeat clients. Click HERE for Dana’s Doulamatch where you can find testimonials, info on her availability, and contact her directly.