A New Beginning

I have never been one to "blog". In fact, I always hated that word with a passion. Just one of those words that gets under your skin and makes you want to punch a kitten. So this is not a blog, I shall call it something else. Something that makes me want to pet a kitten, rather than punch one. Whatever that name is..I shall figure it out eventually. Maybe even start a new trend where the word "blog" is erased from the English vocabulary all over again.

So needless to say, writing this is a little odd to me. I always had a journal growing up, and I guess I will be partially acting as this is such, but it is something so much more open to the world. This is also a place for me to vent and rant, and express my opinions about life, living, and my passions.

So I guess I will start off by introducing myself, to you stranger, random person somewhere out there in the internet lands. I am Jennifer. For the past year I have slowly been heading head first into a world I never knew existed. The maternity world. Now of course I knew what the maternity world was! I just never bothered to go a bit deeper into it. I knew I always loved children, I get along with them, they get along with me. Just one of those things that just..clicked. It all started, though, after I had finished my schooling at Makeup Designory in Los Angeles. I was for sure I wanted to become a makeup artist, not just that but a special effects makeup artist. I learned from the best, Mark Shostrom, the artist behind Evil Dead II, Phantasma, and various Star Treks, just to name a few.

After graduating and moving down to San Diego with my boyfriend, trying to find a makeup job desperately, I realized that even though makeup is fun and dandy and all, it's just not where I want to be in life. It is not something I can see myself doing until I am old and I realized that in no way did I fit in with the rest of that "scene". What we call the entertainment industry. Not me. I am not the kind of girl that spends hours doing her makeup and then a few more hours doing her hair. I am not the kind of girl that bothers what she is wearing. I am not the kind of girl that worries about celebrities. I am the kind of girl that is pierced and tattooed. The kind of girl that is naturally growing her hair into dreads. The kind of girl that is "no 'poo" and washes with only home made soaps. The kind of girl that doesn't get her nails done. The kind of girl that brushes her teeth, makes herself smell good by the soap she used and puts on a quick line of eyeliner and is good to go in 10 minutes. I am the kind of girl who doesn't even watch tv but for a few guilty pleasure shows, because I don't even own a tv!

So I moved from sunny San Deigo, California to rainy Portland, Oregon with my boyfriend and I have never been happier in my whole life. Here I can live, here I can think, here I can BREATH.

During that time of realizing I didn't want to do makeup I started doing research online about what to do next. I was, after all, back at square one. I came across some forums that were for the crunchier side of life and that led me to some other blogs (need to find a new word). I read about womens birth experiences and how it was traumatic, or life altering amazing and everything in between. I studied up on the medical side of it and how hospitals are treating women in the maternity units, something I had never even thought of. I became obsessed. I spent all day reading up on baby story after baby story. I started reading books like Gentle Birth Choices and Spiritual Midwifery and watching movies like The Business of Being Born. I was consumed and outraged and disgusted and horrified and every other feeling all at once. I wanted to DO something. To HELP someone, to be apart of something bigger than just me putting on makeup. In makeup school the teachers kept saying that you were helping someone by making them look beautiful. At the time I didn't realize how superficial and idiotic that was. That was not helping, that was masking.
I wanted to help.
I needed to help.

So here I am, a year later and totally changed from that beauty school student I was not too long ago.
I am about to go to school to get my certificate in Early Childhood and Family Studies, then am getting my certification through Childbirth International to become a doula and childbirth educator, after going to Birthingway College of Midwifery here in Portland when their program is up and running to get my associates to become a lactation consultant.
I plan on opening up my own studio for my doula services, childbirth classes, belly castings (and by castings I do not mean simple plaster bandages, I am trained in silicone and alginate casting to create actual belly statues) and body art.


If any mother out there in the Portland metro area needs a free doula, feel free to contact me. I will not charge, I just want to help.
Any doula or midwife that is willing to tell me any info I may or may not need, feel free to contact me. I am a sponge.


So here is the beginning to a new beginning in my life. One that I am so excited to start and am jumping in with both feet.