Hi All, I’m Kelly B. Warner! (she/they)
(Full-Spectrum Doula, Evolutionary Educator
and Radical Parent)
For 15 years, I managed a reproductive justice program in a hospital where I was able to teach about sexual health choices, provide free birth control, and push back against the system. 👊 Along the way, I started to see more and more of the overwhelming oppression around me. So, I shifted my focus towards anti-racism. I implemented equity policies and practices in my department, pushed for them throughout the hospital, and educated other colleagues about doing the same. ⚖️ But, not everyone saw the same issues I did or agreed with my strategies. I wasn’t making progress anymore and felt it might be time to quit. Instead…
…frustrated, overwhelmed, and a little lost I turned to
Western Canada 🌄
Yup! I jumped on 2 commercial flights✈️✈️, one tiny plane🛩️, a taxi🚕, a water taxi⛴️, and a bus 🚌 to end up on Cortes Island. Under the rays of the warm sun☀️, with my toes in the icy ocean🌊, and my belly full of delicious food😋, I was surrounded by radical humans and submerged in deep love. One of the days, I did a meditation on my own death (yup, as heavy as it sounds). I left feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and full of grief. My body was so immersed in heartache that it felt like I couldn’t breathe. I sprinted to the ocean’s edge and stepped into the shallow water…
…A couple of deep breaths later, the salty air reinvigorated my lungs. I could feel the cool water kissing my ankles and the soft sand hugging my toes. ✨I looked down at the clear water and saw I was surrounded by purple shells. 🐚 That day, the ocean held me. That whole beautiful island held me in a way that allowed my essence to crack open. It was here, in this place, in this ocean, that birth, motherhood, and parenting embraced me. It showed up in my meditations, in my writing, in my group shares…and also in a tiny little human growing inside of me who I did not yet know.
This island was radical magic for me 💖
One week after returning, and after many months of trying, I realized that I was pregnant again.
✨ I found out on a whim on Friday morning when I went to check for what felt like the millionth time in the past year. The line showed up immediately and the first thing I did was run into my background, barefoot in the grass 🌱 and cried and cried.
A memory from the island came back to me - every day we acknowledged our gratitude of the earth, and one specific day, as folks were naming things out loud, the word “fertility” came out from deep within me. I didn’t even know I had said until I did. It came with force, conviction and clarity ❤️🔥 - and so much so that others even remember me in that moment.
Still crying, I did that same practice and offered my love and thanks to the earth and that island that clearly had set the environment for more magic to happen back home. 💖
A week later…
…someone who I had interviewed for in the past called me to their office to see if I’d consider the position again. 👀 They felt they had made the wrong choice in their hire and were looking again. Prior to that island, I would have said yes without hesitation. 💯 But instead, I listened and asked hard questions and felt unsatisfied by the answers. Hand on my belly (that had already outgrown my pants) I said no, thank you. ⛔
From there, I drove to celebrate one of my best friends and all of her friends in their amazing year. 🥳 I walked into the room and saw my birth educator from five years prior. I had not seen her since then. 😯 I walked up to her and gave her a hug and asked her if we could connect as I had some questions for her. ⭐See on the island, motherhood was loud for me. It spoke to me in a way that I felt that the work I had been doing with radical parenting and writing was the direction I should look. She was a radical educator and someone I trusted so I had planned to ask her for help with connections. ⭐
Before I could say more, she pulled back, hands on each of my shoulders and said “you want to be a doula!”
A little stunned, I simply said “maybe!?!” 🤷
“You’d be a great doula,” she said as she walked away. 💛
I will admit that I didn’t know what to do with that.
I simply put the thought in my back pocket and moved forward.
Then, I met my doula. 😍 She was part of the cohort of people that had been to Cortes Island, but she was there a couple of years before me. We were in a book club 📚 together and the first time I met her, I knew. The next time I saw her, I simply said “I know we hardly know each other and we have just met, but when I look at you, I can feel how much I need you and want you to be my doula. Will you?” ☄️
She smiled and said, “of course my love”. 💖
She is what sealed it for me. ✉️ Watching her, learning from her, and witnessing a doula be so much more than the mechanics. She was spiritual, loving, magical, and radical. 🦄 It was never about helping me get through contractions but about loving me in a way that I had not felt before ❤️🔥. It was like she loved me before she even knew I existed. It felt so familiar and also made it so clear to me that this was how I could show up for others. That this was the way to share my love and care with the world. 💖
I knew that first I would birth this babe. 🐣
But, it did not go as I hoped. 😞 In fact, it went pretty terrible. I was doubted along the way, monitored closely and repeatedly poked and prodded. 😡
And then there was the birth. There are so many memories, but a moment of clarity came for me when I was sitting on the labor bed 🏥 after an unsuccessful induction, to have the new doctor tell me all about his fears. In fact, that I was his biggest fear. 🤦 I knew the stats, and I pushed back. He was wrong. But I was cornered.
⭐ Somehow magic found its way back in…
(See 5 years prior to that I gave birth to my first. During that pregnancy, I had a dream that she got stuck and I was yelling for this one doctor for help. (for context, I worked with him and trusted him so it made sense at the time). During my actual birth, she did get stuck. And he was there. He was the one who helped me get her out. He and the other loving brilliant midwife who worked in sync with me. ⭐)
Well fast forward to this awful situation…The labor nurse snuck in to console me and had some news 📰. If I chose to stay there and have my cesarean, then that same doctor from 5 years before would deliver this baby with me again. 🤯 See, here’s the magic… He had been retired for several years, and just happened to be back in town. 😯 This was his second shift of coverage. My partner and I looked at each other and it was an easy decision. We picked him. 💯 A few hours later, he sauntered in making jokes and saying hello to us and our daughter. Moments after, he delivered my son. 🐥It all finally felt so circular… 🌍
As I healed, I felt the universe reminding me that we all deserve to birth in a place where we feel safe, seen, and heard. 💖
So I trained to be a doula, and then a birth educator. And now here I am…
✨ Full circle, full of radical magic, and determined to do and be different ✨
I am now a stay-at-home parent, birthworker, and writer -
and I lead all my work with anti-oppression in mind.
The system of birth is intertwined with racism, transphobia, fatphobia, ableism, and xenophobia.
And simply by acknowledging it, we can change it.
Because I deserved better.
You deserve better.
A JUST BIRTH SYSTEM IS FOR ALL OF US ⚖️
One of the ways, I am here to support you is sharing my FREE guide called
10 Ways to Have a Better Birth Experience.
The system needs an overhaul, but the unfortunate reality is that this is the long road. In the meantime, we can acknowledge and make changes to our own experiences by controlling what we can. This can get you started.
Additional notes for any lovers of details…
I love my family, astrology, dogs, goats, birds, all the rest of the animals, the beaches of NC, fuzzy blankets, back scratches, clothes shopping, suspense books, comedies, making lists, creating whatever idea pops into my head, gardening, squares over circles, and organizing homegoods. Oh, and being the CEO of my family’s Secret Santa - here I might even do some of my best work.
Pic of Cortes Island, BC