In 2008 I earned my certificate in filmmaking from the Center For Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University. I combined my training and experience in natural childbirth, journalism, and filmmaking to make my first documentary film called BIRTH. My interest in natural childbirth began with the birth of my first son, Scott, many years ago.

I told my O.B. that I want to give birth to my baby naturally without drugs. He said, “No, we don't do it that way.” An hour or so later, the nurse popped her head into the room where I labored alone. My labor was getting harder. She screamed at me, “Stop wiggling and relax” and left the room. There I was, just me and my baby laboring all alone in the big cold heartless room. The next time I have a baby, I told myself, I'm going to learn how to relax.

While two doctors talked about their golf game behind a heavy white sheet during delivery, I decided: this is NOT the way I will give birth to my next baby! It is wrong for me and inhumane! I started to make a plan for my next birth.

When I became pregnant with my son John, I found Dr. Jack Mason Hoage, who believed birth was a natural event and mothers possessed everything they needed to give birth without drugs. My husband and I learned to be active members of the birth team. In four pushes my baby was born. I felt an elation like I'd never experienced before — like I'd climbed the highest mountain in the world and saw the best sight of my life at the top, my new baby boy.

Less than a year later, I became a certified childbirth educator and taught my first series of classes in our living room, sometimes while nursing John. Less than ten years later I started my own childbirth program in Trinity County, California, almost at the Oregon border. On March 19, 2009, I screened my first documentary film, BIRTH, at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts in Waltham, MA. No matter what, I will continue to spread the word about natural childbirth and how it adds to the health of the mind, body and spirit of our world.