Katie Greene
As a young child, my imaginative play largely consisted of placing my teddy bears under my shirt, squatting down, and dramatically birthing them. My favorite bedtime story was the story of my birth. It didn’t matter if it was told by my mother or father; I wanted every detail. Fast forward several decades, and my interest in birth hasn’t waned much. I first considered becoming a doula after the empowering experience of giving birth to my first child. I realized that the qualities that I appreciated about my own doula (her compassion, her quiet encouragement, her emotional support for my husband and me) were qualities I’d been using with my students for years in my career as an elementary school teacher.
Through the births of my own three children, I learned that every birth is different. What makes for a positive birth experience for the family changes from person to person, over time, and with experience and information. What I wanted for the birth of my first child was very different from what I wanted with my youngest. What this means for my doula practice is that I know how to help my clients become well informed of their options – while developing a trusting relationship where they feel safe telling me what they need in case my intuition doesn’t pick up on it.
I have been serving Duluth families as a birth doula and postpartum doula since 2013, and working for the MN Prison Doula Project to provide parent education and birth and postpartum doula services at the St. Louis County Jail since 2016. My training includes a master’s degree in education, birth doula training through DONA International, postpartum doula training through ProDoula, and Aromatherapy for Pregnancy Birth and Postpartum through Birth Arts International. I have training in trauma and resistance through STARR Commonwealth and am currently pursuing my 200 hour yoga teacher training.