Emma Pence, CBD
My interest in supporting women during birth started years ago when a neighbor told me the story of her natural birth (it included a doula, hypnosis, and a buried placenta). It planted a little seed of fascination that I didn’t forget. Years later, in my final year at MSU, I was watching childbirth education videos for fun (as people do 🙂 ) and stumbled upon a video by Bridget Teyler about birth doulas. I thought to myself, “I could do that!”, and the little seed began to bloom. Within a year, I took a DONA approved workshop (March 2021) and received my training certificates. I attended my first few births and became a Certified Birth Doula through Lifespan
Doulas, created and owned by Patty Brennan.
As I started putting down roots in the birth community, I learned about midwifery and the option to birth with Certified Professional Midwives. This snowballed into me travelling to Montana to take a survey midwifery course (Modules of Midwifery) through GoMidwife. The highly interactive course ran from mid-August to mid-November 2021, and was my foundation for learning about natural birth. From September 2022 through March 2025, I apprenticed as a student midwife with two home birth practices in Michigan and attended many births in that capacity. Since then, I've been focusing on my doula practice and have greatly enjoyed continuing to grow and learn.
