Femme de F.E.L.F

Hey There,

I'm Janelle, Wife, Birth & Postpartum Doula, Breastfeeding Educator and your soon to be birth bestie! I have a strong passion for helping women develop faith in themselves and to trust their bodies during childbirth. I believe that Jesus, giver and sustainer of life has given us the power, strength and the ability to do this amazing work. By remembering and practicing ancestral wisdom and customs, we have the power to heal and improve our reproductive health with the assistance of plant allies and proper nutrition. We must have faith in our bodies and remember that we were gifted the honour of transporting life from the spiritual to the physical realm.

We Were Made For This!

My Heritage

I was born and raised in the beautiful Island of St.Lucia but migrated to the USA at age 16 to continue my education. Island life, as you could imagine was simple and blissful. Living on the East Coast of the USA has made me realise how much I took the simple things for granted. I would do anything to walk to the beach or visit my grandmother and have a choice of picking my own orange, limes, cherries, mangoes, coconuts and soursops!

My Love For Birth Work

My passion for birth work stems from a desire to serve others as a form of worship to Christ. Half way through graduate school, I realised that everything I had aspired to do and accomplished came from a desire develop self and improve self, it wasn't to help others.

Graduation was approaching and I had to do some deep self reflection. The safe haven that college life gave me was coming to and end and I was about to enter the real world! Did I choose the right career path? Am I going to enjoy doing this for the rest of my life?

While I enjoyed performing DNA analyses on sexual assault samples, toxicology analyses to identify drugs in body fluids and arson analyses on fire debris samples... something was lacking. I knew deep down I wouldn't be fulfilled. I started getting tired of suiting up (lab coat, gloves, face mask pre COVID and lots of hair nets) every day knowing I had to do something about it ASAP.

The summer of my first year of graduate school, I attended my church's annual prayer retreat, which usually lasts a week. I should mention that a week before that was the first time I saw a video on Instagram of a woman having a home birth, in a birth pool, with a BIG SMILE on her face! I had never seen anything like this before and I wanted so bad to be apart of that experience! I obviously didn't want to go back to school for another 1000 years (I'm exaggerating) to become a midwife so I researched different birth professional programs and discovered the role of doulas in the birth realm. During my prayer retreat, I prayed for opportunities to serve God as I serve others and on the third day of the five-day retreat, God revealed to me that my newly found interest was my life's purpose! Since then, I've become certified as a birth professional, served a diverse group of families, both paid and gratis, and I have been continuing my education as I stay in prayer to serve growing families the way God intended for my life.

My Education & Training

Certified Maternal Support Practitioner, trained as a Fertility, Birth & Postpartum Doula with Bebo Mia
Pregnancy and Postpartum Herbs and Nutrition in the Black Southern Tradition, Divine Birth Wisdom
Certified Belly Binding Professional trained in the Malaysian Bengkung Tradition
M.S.F.S Forensic Science, Arcadia University
B.S. Forensic Biology, Chestnut Hill College