I have lived many lives in my short time on this earth, and each one has had so many layers.
As a child I was a Straight A student, devout catholic daughter, prestigious girl scout that turned tomboy. A descendant of immigrants who placed high expectations on my small shoulders.
My career has taken me places I was meant to see, but never stay. I am a former nurse and Military veteran, and during my years of service in both of these fields, I was witness (and victim) to the trespassing of bodies and rights alike.
Through birth, through healing, through connection with other women, I have been able to cross the threshold of my purpose and fully embody the work of womb-sanctity. It is the work of this body that has lent me the voice to call forth the women.
I have lived many lives...
Elissa
meet
At 18 I joined America's fraternity: The US Marine Corps. I took the rate of Helicopter Mechanic and did two tours in Iraq. It should come as no surprise that Sexual Assault found me in the military.
As my time in the military counted down, a clock was set against the most important person in my life. My father was diagnosed with cancer.
To cope with the grief, buried myself under 18 credits in my first semester of college. Four years later I was a fully fledged nurse and entered the realization that nursing was a whole lot of pushing medications and not a lot of healing.
Finding my path
Birth transformed me by first leaving me with much to process. I only narrowly escaped surgery but damage had been done.
After years and layers of hurt, I had run out of space to hide all of my pain. I tried talk therapy for over a year and found myself at a plateau. Then...
Somehow I found a woman online and I booked a birth trauma debrief with her. That session was the catalyst for big changes in my life.
I made my exit plan to leave nursing, I trained as a birth keeper and learned how to finally take the reins of my life, I found my passion for pregnancy and birth.
Birth transformed me...
- I've traveled to Poland and France
- I danced flokorico as a child and I loved playing the castanets
- I was a Helicopter Mechanic in the Marine Corps for 5 years.
Fun Facts About Me
My situation has since changed and I currently don't have enough support with my own son to attend births in person, however, that has allowed me to focus more on offering the medicine that was initially so potent for me: the birth trauma debrief.
I have also expanded these sessions to include more than just traumatic birth stories. A woman asked me to witness her story of a postpartum derailed after her freebirth and I realized that there is more nuance to this work than I initially realized.
So now I hold space for your story, no matter when it took place or whether it is related to birth at all. It's my belief that healing increases exponentially when we do it together. It's my honor to hold space for the telling of these stories, and to continue to serve women during their pregnancy and birth, even if it's in a different capacity for now.
Potent Medicine
