About Birthing Chapters

Hi, I’m Deana [dee-nuh] (MA, PRYT, E-RYT 200, YACEP), a perinatal yoga teacher / doula, birth art facilitator, a National Writing Project-trained educator certified in K-12 gifted & Gd. 9-12 ELA, an educational non-profit leader, an aspiring Renaissance woman, a wife, & mama of three (ranging from infant to age 6)!  Thank you for being here.

In my service outside motherhood (beyond passion for building community in a spirit of welcoming), I find great purpose in supporting:

  • fellow students’ writing journeys;

  • others’ prenatal/postpartum journeys.

Ever a fan of a meaningful pun, my embrace of “birthing chapters” was born.

What on earth could BIRTH & WRITING have in common?

A whole lot, as it turns out.  

Both call upon us to return to studenthood—to learn & prepare, to welcome growth & seek our flow. Both challenge to lean into our wisdom, to relinquish fear & self-judgment, to lean into the constant of change. Both can also benefit from mentorship valuing of your goals, your strengths, your growth, your story. Both compel us with calls to action — to one day release into the world what we’ve grown.

Perhaps you’re like me & literally amidst your “Birthing Chapters” — the season of babies, a season in which one’s invited to embrace ongoing transitions personal or professional or parental. It’s a powerful time to (re)learn the power of our voice, to be invited to release whatever holds us back from savoring the present. It’s also a time individuals deserve to feel their bravest self — able to voice needs & wishes while feeling safe & heard.

“Birthing Chapter(s)” might be right where you are or where you’re headed next. Sometimes, the pages may feel like a blur or molasses. Either way, we are challenged to lean into now.

I’m ever drawn to cheering on others’ voices & autonomy be it through writing or the prenatal-postpartum transition. Translating quality education from page to yoga mat, to birth space, to life, you’ll find me in classrooms, studios, parks, & birth-spaces doing one thing: striving to to help others feel nourished, grounded, empowered, informed, heard. I look forward to sharing more page-turns to come.

Turning Pages with Evolving Birthwork 

Following the beautifully committed midwifery and doula care she felt journeying toward her first child's homebirth, Deana (MA, PRYT, E-RYT 200, YACEP, CD) was immediately inspired to build upon the meditative roots of her ShambhavAnada Hatha teaching background to train in prenatal and postpartum yoga instruction. Ever since she completed such coursework with her first infant in tow, she's been a teaching staple at her beloved yoga homes of Full Circle Yoga KC and hOMe Holistic, supporting hundreds of students across various offerings of perinatal yoga, caretaker-baby yoga, early childhood yoga, and workshops since 2018.

In 2020, wishing to extend mindful support of birthing individuals and families beyond the mat while building upon her passion for education, she experienced the life-changing gift of training under some of the nation's most committed obstetric injustice-fighting mentors at Uzazi Village to become a community-valuing birth and postpartum doula, childbirth educator, reproductive health counselor, and lactation peer counselor. Thereafter in 2021, she was thrilled to add the facilitation of birth art processing to her scope of practice with Birthing From Within, and this offering has become one of her most beloved parts of serving perinatal families.

Amidst journeying through the seasons of motherhood, Deana, bringing 15 years of experience as an English Language Arts educator & educational nonprofit advocate, offers birthing individuals her great passion for empowering perinatal families to get to hear one another and be deeply heard by the supporters of their birth journeys, too. She prides herself in the maintaining of a unique style of practice—one that intentionally commits to a limited number of families each season so as to get to know families with depth and provide the most comprehensively individualized and attuned support possible possible. She encourages all families she encounters to build their most trusted, quality birth team imaginable as part of the journey—whether or not it is she who is selected. This emphasis upon families having the ability to surrender and trust their birth team makes her feel all the more deeply grateful each time a family chooses to entrust her with supporting their journey.