About Me

I am…

… a wife, a mother, a daughter and a sister.

… a cross-trained, certified labor doula, a certified 200-hour and 85-hour prenatal yoga instructor, a trained placenta encapsulator, a Birthing From Within Certified Mentor, a hospitality & catering business owner, a wife, a mom, and a marketing professional.

… a person who desires to use her knowledge and experience to help women transition into mothers in the most positive, empowered, and peaceful way possible.

Why did I become a doula and childbirth educator?

After the birth of my own daughter I felt a strong calling. For the first time I felt that my life had direction and purpose. The moment my daughter was born was the greatest moment of my life, and the birth experience that my husband and I shared was wonderful, but the most difficult and challenging thing I have ever done.

Throughout my pregnancy I read every pregnancy book I could get my hands on and I attended all of the classes. Then when the big moment came, even though I felt that I knew everything I needed to, I was still filled with doubt, fear and questions. Nothing went quite as I expected. My labor nurse was amazing, but she wasn’t there throughout the entire labor and birth. When she was there, she was coercive and condescending. That’s where I would have loved to have a doula.

From my own experience I decided that I would love to help other women and their partners have the best birthing experience possible. After attending my first births, I was amazed at the process, and decided that I wanted to help other mothers enjoy their labors confidently and with as little intervention as possible. With every birth I attend, I gain more knowledge and am more amazed by the beautiful, empowering birth process, and by the utter strength that each woman discovers within.

It is my goal to ensure that every woman I assist remembers the birth of her baby with positive and loving memories. That she feels that she is informed, comfortable, and that she knows that her baby’s birth is exactly as it should be.

Over the last few years I’ve heard a new call. That is to become a Birthing From Within mentor and childbirth educator, a path to certification upon which I currently walk. And even more strongly than that, I’ve heard the booming call to lead women’s retreats.

Becoming a retreat leader came from a personal need. I’ve searched for a retreat that was spiritual, but not religious. A retreat that included yoga, meditation, writing, art, birth education/exploration/processing, and sisterhood – All of these things, but not a particular focus on any single one of them. A local retreat which wouldn’t require expensive travel, yet where I could get away for a few nights in an affordable location.

BUT…I couldn’t find it.

SO…I’m creating it. It has become my “What If…?”

What does Namasté mean?

Namasté is a Hindi salutation or greeting, a combination of the two Sanskrit words: nama, and te. Basically, nama means “to bow” and te means “you.” It means “the divinity in me recognizes and honors the divinity in you.” Namasté, when performed as an action, is when hands are in prayer position at heart center, and you bow to the person you are greeting. It is a humbling gesture performed in recognition that we are all on equal standings, all of us are children of light and divinity. We are one.

A more detailed bio that reads like a resume: 

Nikki is a mother of three young girls who discovered yoga around the year 2000. After a lifelong battle with depression, she was surprised and intrigued by the effect yoga had not only on her body, but also on her mental and spiritual wellbeing. She earned her 200-hour yoga teacher certificate in 2009 through the Inland College of Yoga in Southern California. After the birth of her first daughter, Nikki became inspired to become a doula so that she may help other women achieve the empowered birth experience they hope for. She has since become a Dolphin Method trained and DONA certified birth and labor doula, and has earned her 85-hour Prenatal Vinyasa Teacher certification under the guidance of Jennifer More. She offers placenta encapsulation in addition to her doula services. She has taught yoga on and off for years, including gentle, hatha, vinyasa and prenatal yoga.

After hearing the call to deepen her spiritual practice, she trained with Birthing From Within to provide birth art sessions, an experience which led her to train to become a Birthing From Within mentor and childbirth educator. She is now proud and excited to add transformative women’s retreats and childbirth education classes to her expertise.

Nikki strives to integrate the complementary worlds of yoga, birth, and self-reflection; and to ensure that each woman she serves has the physical, emotional and educational support she needs to birth confidently and with as little intervention as possible. It is Nikki’s goal that every woman she assists remembers the birth of her baby with positive and loving memories, and that she feels that she is informed, comfortable, and that she knows that her journey to becoming a mother is exactly as it should be.