About Me

Hey babe! I’m Lauren, and in the picture above is me with my husband, Anders, my son, Bowie, and my daughter, Tigerlily. We live in the southern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia with our dog, Adam West, and our black cats, Snowball and Walter White.

When I fell pregnant with Bowie at the end of 2016, I had the “I’ll just go with the flow” mentality about my upcoming birth. At the start of my second trimester, I started regularly attending Positive Birth Movement meet ups, which were run by a local doula. I had no idea what a doula was until I started attending those meet ups, or even that home birth was an actual thing that people did!

I went on to have a beautiful, healthy pregnancy, which ended at 41 weeks when I went into spontaneous labour. My labour was long and hard but I did it naturally (the way I wanted), in hospital, with the support of my husband, mum, student midwife, and hospital midwives. Bowie ended up having shoulder dystocia and being taken to NICU immediately after birth, which was traumatic, but thankfully we were both well and reunited less than 24 hours later. You can read the full birth story here.

It took me about a year to realise that I had trauma from Bowie’s birth, and I don’t even remember what it was that caused me to recognise it, but once I did, I became obsessed with birth. In April 2019, I went to a Birth Without Fear conference, in which I met several other birth nerds and heard some incredible birth workers speak. It was at this point that I decided that I wanted to become a doula, but I wasn’t sure when or how.

A few months later, Angel Phoenix Arsenal (formerly known as Angela Gallo) announced that she would be hosting a Dynamo Doula Training in Perth in November 2019. Long story short, my husband and I made it work and I was there! It was the most incredible experience, and it made it even more clear that I was on the right path. I was newly pregnant with Tigerlily during Dynamo Doula Training too, which made it even more special.

After DDT, I hired one of my doula sisters to be my doula, and THANK GOODNESS I did because the pandemic hit at the start of my third trimester. Despite being a doula myself, there was no way I could have doula’ed myself through the final trimester of my pregnancy. When it came time for me to birth, hospitals still had the one support person rule in place, however, with the help of my doula, I was able to get an exemption to have two support people present during my birth.

I went into labour on Tigerlily’s due date, and her birth was incredible. We had a few small hiccups along the way, but nothing major. I felt so incredibly supported and birthed my 4.57kg posterior baby beautifully. Her full birth story can be read here.

After birthing and going through my first 8 weeks postpartum with the support of a doula, I was even more passionate about the importance of giving and receiving doula support. I officially launched my doula business and attended my first birth in September 2020, when Tigerlily was just 4 months old.

Not only am I passionate about helping create positive and empowered births, I am also obsessed with breastfeeding! I have exclusively breastfed both of my babies, and am currently tandem feeding them. The breastfeeding rates in Australia are dismal at the moment, and I believe that this is due to a lack of support and education available to new parents. It is a big dream of mine to help improve the breastfeeding rates in Australia, and I am currently completing a volunteer traineeship with the Australian Breastfeeding Association, at the end of which I will become a qualified Breastfeeding Counsellor.

So there you have it – a bit about me and why I do what I do. I’m a bit of an over-sharer on Instagram, so be sure to follow me if you think you’d vibe with me!