Being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a teenager changed my life. After struggling for many years to accept my diagnosis, I found support beyond my endocrinologist and health care providers—the diabetes community.

Learning to live well with a chronic condition can sometimes look like finding people who understand what it’s like to be you. My experiences leading peer support groups, both online and in-person, inspired me to seek out ways of becoming a better resource for people living with diabetes.

In 2016, I enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition’s Health Coach Training Program. Though I initially thought I’d use some of the credits earned to return to school to become a Registered Dietitian and eventually a CDCES, something rather unexpected happened. Within the HCTP, my eyes were opened to the many different ways we can work to heal and better ourselves—body, mind, and spirit.

Before I graduated from the program with IIN, I was already enrolled in a local 200-hr Yoga Teacher Training and had begun sharing meditation within the diabetes community. I spent the following couple of years traveling across the country speaking and sharing my story, as well as leading yoga and meditation practices, at diabetes conferences and events including Connected in Motion’s Slipstream weekends, the Students with Diabetes Conference, the DiabetesSisters Weekend for Women and Leadership Institute, the JDRF Young Adult Conference, the TCOYD Conference, the Diabulimia Helpline Conference, Camp Nejeda’s Survive & Thrive Bootcamp, and more.

Over the past five years, I’ve continued to lead peer support groups for women with diabetes online, while also teaching yoga and meditation, both in-person and virtually. Throughout this time, I’ve held closely a vision for my future that connects back to the “why” I discovered within myself during my darkest days with diabetes as a young adult—my hope of one day becoming a mom.

In 2021, I enrolled in a Full Spectrum Doula Training program with Doula Trainings International (DTI). It was during this time that I also became pregnant with my son, Angus, who was born in January 2022. After shifting my priorities to motherhood and exploring my own postpartum healing for the past year or so, I have recently felt called to begin doing more work as a doula that specializes in people with both pre-existing and gestational diabetes. While being a mom to Angus still remains my primary focus and the greatest joy of my lifetime, I know part of the work I’m meant to do here on Earth is to help guide other people with diabetes through their journey to calling in and welcoming their babies, as well as honoring their own transition into life postpartum.

As a full spectrum doula, it is my hope to empower and support all people with diabetes when it comes to reproductive health events and I hold a special interest in supporting those who are preparing for pregnancy or trying to conceive, anyone who is currently pregnant, and those who are recently postpartum.

I know the unique challenges that preparing for or experiencing a pregnancy with diabetes can bring. I also recognize the complex nature of healing and the transition to parenthood during one’s postpartum season. Whether I’m working with someone remotely or in-person, it is my intention to hold space for whatever it is that they’re going through or working towards, while also providing encouragement, evidenced-based support, and the genuine understanding of sharing a lived experience as a person who is also existing in a body with diabetes.