About me
Hi, I’m Julie. I’m a wife, mother, educator, life-long learner, Catholic, bereavement doula, and biology nerd. Picking favorites is hard, but if I had to choose, I’d choose A Tale of Two Cities for books and Psych for TV shows. I enjoy making my own kombucha and kefir and cooking without a recipe.
My family and I live in Michigan. We have one cat, Franklin, who is named after Rosalind Franklin, a scientist whose work was key to the discovery of the structure of DNA. My husband and I share a love of teaching and tackling big ideas. You’ll often find us off on big or small adventures, enjoying nature walks, small towns, or the best allergen-free chocolate (Oh Mi Organics in St. Johns, MI).
I enjoy research deep dives into topics I’m passionate about. While I’m learning, I’m already planning in my mind how I can share my knowledge with others and connect them with resources. For me, teaching is so much more than one-way transfer of knowledge. It’s a collaborative process of mutual growth in understanding and knowledge. I always learn with the individuals that I teach.
What I do
Most of my days are spent as a mom and a wife. I also work as the Creative Director of Haven Bereavement Doulas and am an instructor for the Haven Bereavement Doula training. In addition, I volunteer with a babywearing community group with my husband, so parents can learn how to safely wear their babies and toddlers. I also am a Catholic Nursing Mothers League mentor mom.
Finally, I’m a Haven-trained bereavement doula. My interest in grief work started with my own experience of perinatal loss. Perinatal loss includes miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss. As I worked with clients as a FertilityCare Practitioner, teaching women and couples to chart their menstrual cycles and signs of fertility, I realized that my own experience of perinatal loss did not prepare me to support others through loss. I then sought out training to become grief-informed to better support all my clients. That experience led me to create a training specifically for NFP instructors, How to Respond to Pregnancy Loss an NFP/FABM instructor. I am also a facilitator for the Bereaved Parents Community Group.
Through my work, I strive to strengthen support for both loss families and those who support them. I want all parents to be able to access support in the immediate aftermath of a loss as well as years later. I want them to know that they are not alone, and I want to connect them to the resources that they need. I know that resources for perinatal loss can be difficult to find; I am compiling resources for loss families to reduce the barrier to find support. Grief is messy, confusing, and not linear. I want to honor that grief.
In addition, I want support people to have the knowledge and resources they need to support loss families. When I could not find a training specific to NFP instructors to teach them how to respond to clients who have experienced a perinatal loss in the past or while charting with them, I created that training. I am now trained as an instructor for the Haven Bereavement Doula training. I am excited to guide others through the process of becoming a bereavement doula.
