A few years ago, my friend Deah Baird and I began brainstorming about a childbirth method that gives the body its rightful place in birth education. Labor and birth, after all, are very physical experiences, and most contemporary childbirth classes didn't satisfy our desire for a body-mind-balanced birth preparation. So Deah and I began creating The Yoga Way to Birth while our young children played together around our kitchen tables. Deah brought her experience as a midwife, naturopath and counselor to the table, while I drew from my work as a student of yoga, prenatal yoga teacher and labor doula.
For me, yoga, birth and motherhood are deeply intertwined – they are twin experiences born from the same root and nurtured with the same longing: the longing to be present in body and mind, centered, and loving in all my endeavors.
I began practicing yoga when I was six months pregnant with my first baby, and fell in love with yoga while my belly grew bigger. It was a love for life, as I slowly came to realize after my son was born and we got to know each other, and as I got pregnant a second time, a third time (ending in a miscarriage), and a blessed fourth time.
Each one of those pregnancies and births taught me a lot, as do the joys and challenges of motherhood. Yoga is giving those experiences an anchor of purposeful assignment and reflection. The Yoga Way to Birth echoes those reflections and my joyful search for deep connection and expression of what I deeply care about.
Training and Experience
- Mother to Felix (1997), Hanna (1999) and Saskia (2003)
- Married to Mark Lilly
- Certified yoga instructor -- 2008 (certified after 370 training hours with Sarahjoy Marsh, Amrita Sanctuary)
- Integrative Movement Therapy/Level 1 training with Molly Kenny from the Samarya Center -- 2008
- Co-founder of The Yoga Way to Birth -- 2006
- Homeschool Educator -- 2005 till 2008
- Prenatal and postpartum yoga instructor -- 2002 till 2009
- DONA Certified Labor and Birth Doula -- 2001
- Yoga practitioner at Near East Yoga -- 2008 till present
Other Endeavors
- Third year graduate student at Portland State University, School of Education
- Intern at Lutheran Community Services
- Baking bread, fermenting, writing, knitting, eating locally, keeping chickens, gardening
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