BirthAmbassador

My name is Joyce Havinga-Droop, mother of 3 girls, wife to a wonderful husband. I completed my Doula training with Debra Pascali-Bonaro through DONA International in January 2012 and I went on to complete my holistic doula training with Whapio through The Matrona,strengthening my capacity to nurture and connect with couples and their babies while reaffirming my belief in physiological birth.

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Besides working as a birth doula I also work as a birth assistant with Nurmidwifery. I'm also an AHA CPR instructor and teach private and group classes at NURspace. I also teach CPR certification.

 

I'm a Spinning Babies® Certified Parent Educator, a Certified GentleBirth Instructor and Certified Lactation Counselor.

 

After having traveled the world while working for diplomats for many years I quit my job in September 2011 and decided to follow my heart and passion to work with young families especially with pregnant people.

 

As a young girl living in Rwanda, Africa I would go to maternity clinics to help mothers with their newborns wishing to be able to assist at a birth. When I was 18 my wish came true and I assisted at the birth of a friend of mine, I remember it being a hard birth as this was her first baby and she was being induced so the father-to-be could be there. I was happy to be able to hold her hand, encourage her to get through labor and help her bring her little boy into the world. The days that followed I helped her take care of herself and her newborn.

 

After that experience I’ve always wanted to work with families and pregnant people and their babies, but somehow I never got there until now.

 

The name BirthAmbassador came to mind when I was handed the “Birth Ambassadors: Doulas and the Re-Emergence of Woman-Supported Birth in America" book by Christine H. Morton and Elayne Clift (thanks Silvie Falschlunger). Having worked abroad for ambassadors for many years I now have become a BirthAmbassador to support couples explore the foreign land of labor and birth.