Meet the Training Team!!
Nicole Heidbreder MA, BSN, RN
Nicole Heidbreder has worked as a Hospice nurse and Labor & Delivery Nurse in various capacities for the last 10 years in the Washington DC area and has been attending births as a doula for over 17 years here in DC, NYC, San Francisco, Sumatra, Bali, and Uganda. Currently, she also facilitates independent birth doula workshops and trains nursing students as a Clinical Instructor with the Johns Hopkins University Birth Companions Program.
In addition to being a DONA International approved Birth doula trainer, she is also DONA International trained birth and postpartum doula; a Lamaze and CEA trained Childbirth Educator; and a Lactation Counselor trained through Healthy Children. She has taught hundreds of women over the past 10 years and truly believes that teaching maternal child health is her life's calling. Additionally she teaches End of Life Doula Workshops for the International End of Life Doula Association. Through her work as a leader in the field of clinical nursing education Nicole was proudly inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honors Society as a Leader in the field of Nursing and she sat on the George Washington University Hospital Ethics Committee for 2 years. Since 2010, she has been working on a research project in America and Canada surveying Labor & Delivery Nurses, Labor Doulas, and Childbirth Educators - find out about it here: The Maternity Support Survey. Through this survey she co-published a chapter in this compendium on the important work Doulas are contributing to the field of Maternal Child Health: Doulas and Intimate Labour.
Nicole's other maternal/child health experience includes being a member of the New Leadership Council for the International Women's Health Coalition and from 2008 - 2011 Nicole was the Director of International Development for DONA International. In this position, she created and ran the International Fellowship initiative to promote the global expansion of community health workers/doulas by diversifying doula trainers beyond white, heterosexual trainers! Additionally from 2009-2010 Nicole worked as the Special Events Coordinator for Choices in Childbirth.
In 2005 Nicole attended her first birth alongside world renowned midwife Ibu Robin Lim while in a small village in the north of Sumatra. She returned to Indonesia in 2008 to apprentice with midwife Ibu Robin Lim and her life has been forever changed. You can learn more about midwife Ibu Robin Lim and the Bumi Sehat Health and Birth Center HERE as the founder, Ibu Robin Lim, was named the CNN Hero of the year in 2010. Nicole dedicates her career in Maternal Health to Ibu Robin for bringing her to her first magical birth and thus inspiring her on the path of learning the wise ways of birth.
MELISSA DAVIS, CD(DONA)
As a birth Doula for 3 decades Melissa has had the pleasure of serving in a career that she loves and would do even if she never received a paycheck. Melissa has served in births that were magical rainbows with butterflies and births that have ended in fetal loss. No matter what the out outcome people walking through labor and birth need to be supported and supporters of birthing people need to be supported in love. As the mother of 6 and the grandmother of 5 Melissa approaches every birth with the thought that this could be her child and how she supports this birth will come back to them. Melissa believes that everything that is not an emergency has an option and it's the job of the Doula to inform families of their options. Coming into birthwork as a trauma survivor Melissa uses her story to travel and speak to survivors and show there is life after trauma. Embrace it, understand it, and then use it. Melissa is proud to be a part of Hands of Melody (LLC) Doula agency, a tight knit village of women from different walks of life, backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, and experience. We love how we love!
SARAH PAKSIMA
Sarah Paksima has worked in the field of maternal health for twenty years. She has started three successful businesses, a non-profit, and enjoys helping new birth workers succeed. Sarah is a certified DONA doula, Lamaze educator and program director, and has an MPH and MBA from Johns Hopkins. She has worked in many places in the United States, in addition to India, Jordan, Oman and Kuwait, helping and supporting families. She is the current owner of DC Birth Doulas and serves on the committee for Advocacy and Research for Lamaze International. Sarah is the mother of five children, ranging from college to kindergarten, and loves hiking in creeks and on mountains, gardening, baking, and making music.
TARRYN BAZEMORE WILLIAMS
Began her birth work journey as a volunteer providing peer counseling and parenting classes at a pregnancy center. Her love for supporting and preparing those families for childbirth turned into a passion which drove her to expand her specialties to include childbirth education, birth & postpartum doula support, yoga, and reiki. An alumni of Graceful Fusion, she keeps the heart of servitude in the center of her practice, encouraging families to transition into parenthood authentically, embracing their natural instincts and innate wisdom.
Deeply believing in the power of community taking care of each other, she served as the coordinator of the now-defunct Community of Hope Volunteer Doula Program throughout its nearly four years of operation and was a recipient of the 2019 Barbara Seaman Award for Activism in Women's Health by the National Women's Health Network. In addition to her volunteer work, she is the founder of Blossom Beginnings Doula Collective, bringing doulas of color together to support families with unbiased, non-judgmental holistic doula support. Tarryn believes that doulas are at the heart of birth work and well trained, prepared doulas are essential in improving maternal and infant outcomes. She enjoys advising new doulas and helping to advance the doula profession. She is so excited to have the opportunity to connect with those desiring to support birthing families and is eager to meet you!
KERRY REYNOLDS
Kerry has been a full time DONA trained Birth Doula since January of 2009, when she began her doula business Birth In Bloom. In 2018 Kerry accepted a position as Senior Doula and Director of Birth Services with Balanced Birth Support and Doulas of Northern Virginia. In these complimentary roles, Kerry is able to use her passion and knowledge to connect families with the right doula for their individual needs and goals. She works with steadfast devotion to doulas and families to curate the perfect dream team. Kerry also supports the doulas within her team at Balanced Birth Support and the Doulas of Northern Virginia as a Senior Doula Mentor. Having started her career alongside a doula mentor of her own, Kerry is enthusiastic about providing support and encouragement to others who feel called to serve the birth community and is excited to share her excitement for supporting families with others.
As a native to the DMV, Kerry has a unique and deep connection to the community she serves. In addition to her doula work, Kerry is continuously adding new trainings to her wheelhouse and has been a Lamaze trained Childbirth Educator and Placenta Encapsulation Specialist for more than a decade. With her longevity in the field, Kerry has had the opportunity to train in other modalities that help enhance her doula support such as Massage, Acupressure, Spinning Babies Positions for Pregnancy and Labor, TENS therapy for labor and is currently completing her HypnoBabies Doula Training and HelloBirth Educator Certification. Kerry has extensive experience supporting VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean), High Risk Pregnancies, IFV Pregnancies, Solo Parenting and provides compassionate care to families through infant loss and TFMR. Kerry is deeply committed to supporting LGBTQIA+ families and has completed the Open Door LGBTQ+ Competency Training for professionals.
Beyond birth work, Kerry is mom to two smart and wonderful humans and became “Kiki” to a grandson in 2018. In her free time, you might find her singing karaoke at one of the local spots, soaking up some sun on her SUP, or getting her hands dirty in the garden. She looks forward to meeting you and supporting your journey into birth work!
KASSI REYES , RN, IBCLC, MSN, MPH
Kassi is the owner and co founder of People's Lactation based in Washington DC. She has 14+ years of experience as a Registered Nurse, including work as a postpartum nurse, doula and currently as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She has a Masters of Science in Nursing and a Master's in Public Health. Kassi is bilingual in English and Spanish.
She loves working with parents and their new babies and understands how crucial good support is to a growing family. Through her work at a local hospital and her private practice People's Lactation she gets to work with diverse families and help to meet their diverse needs. She loves that People's Lactation gives her the opportunity to sit one one one with families in their homes and help empower them to meet their individual feeding goals for their baby and their family. Kassi also serves the latino community in the DMV area by teaching prenatal and breastfeeding classes through the Organization La Clinica del Pueblo. She also loves the opportunity to teach families and other healthcare professionals via virtual visits and classes and through her YouTube channel: Kassi Brooke Reyes.
In her spare time she loves to sit with a warm cup of coffee, practice yoga, spend time outdoors, and travel the world (when able).
RONIT ZELIVINSKI
Ronit Zelivinski is a midwife in the Washington DC area with Sage Midwifery. Ronit has worked as a doula, yoga teacher and infant massage instructor for seven years throughout the DMV. Her diverse background in various body and breath work modalities have enhanced her deep love and reverence for the human body and the power of connection at all ages. Ronit is passionate about providing holistic, non-judgmental, and evidence based care to facilitate optimal health, fertility and wellness throughout the lifespan. Upon completion of her Midwifery program, Ronit will also pursue a degree to become a Registered Herbalist so that she can holistically and traditionally take care of entire families from preconception through the child-rearing years. Ronit has spent the last seven years refining the prenatal education component of her Doula work and places a strong emphasis on ecstatic and orgasmic birth, traditional nutrition and spiritual healing. While these are her passions, she looks forward to helping you discover your own and showing you how you can infuse them in your Doula careers. Ronit believes that the essence of a birth worker role is not only to help couples have beautiful birth stories, but to support them as they transition into strong, healthy, and confident families. She looks forward to meeting you and learning together!
LINDSEY UHRIG
Lindsey has supported hundreds of families in the DMV area as a full spectrum doula, prenatal yoga teacher, birth educator, former clinical health educator and newly minted energy worker. Lindsey fell in love with birth work as a young raging feminist looking for a way to take the patriarchy down. After a brief stint coordinating international development programs in newborn and maternal health she began to understand the power and effectiveness of community health initiatives and the ability of individuals to create change . Seeing doula work as the greatest effort in direct service community health, Lindsey dove in to her training with a little apprehension and a ton of passion. Since her training 4 years and 70 births ago, Lindsey has realized that birth and the treatment of laboring women is a clear platform for women's empowerment and a clear indicator of a society's opinions of women's rights. Lindsey is humbled to support women through some of the most intense moments of their lives. Professionally, Lindsey is certified through Lamaze to teach birth education, in the process of certifying with DONA to continue to support women and certified to teach prenatal yoga. She serves pregnant families as a doula and all women as a healer and guide through private empowerment sessions. She gets to do fun things like help with doula trainings, guest lecture at community centers and universities and tell women they are indeed strong enough. Lindsey also serves as an acting member and lead trainer for the DC Doulas for Choice, a collective of women serving a nearby abortion clinic with support services. Lindsey's other interests include travel, bargain shopping and the pelvic floor.