Maddie was drawn to birth work by a deep interest in embodiment, autonomy, and what helps people feel at home in their own bodies. As a doula, she brings a calm, attentive presence to the families she cares for, along with curiosity, humor, and a genuine respect for the fact that no two people need the same kind of care. She pays particular attention to the ways people express comfort, uncertainty, and preference, including the things that aren't always easy to put into words. She believes deeply in listening before assuming, offering information without judgment, and making space for clients to decide what feels right for them. Maddie is drawn to supporting clients who want birth care that makes room for complexity, difference, and a fuller sense of who they are.
Her training reflects this capacious approach, encompassing lactation, pregnancy and infant loss, and NICU-informed support in addition to pregnancy, labor, and birth. She values being able to meet clients across experiences that do not always follow a neat or predictable trajectory, and to offer steady support through anticipation, uncertainty, change, and loss.
Pregnancy, labor, birth, and postpartum life are full of sensations, uncertainties, decisions, and changes that can feel enormous precisely because they are so embodied and immediate. Maddie is interested in helping clients move through those shifts without feeling that they need to have the right words—or even know exactly what they want at every moment. Sometimes that means talking through a preference or hesitation; other times it means noticing that something has changed and taking the time to figure out what comes next. She loves being able to slow down with clients and make an often overwhelming process feel more navigable, while leaving room for surprise, humor, and joy.
Maddie firmly believes that good doula care lives in the balance between preparation and adaptability. She enjoys gathering information, crafting lists, and talking through the many possible versions of a birth—but she also knows that bodies and babies rarely care about our plans. She values the preparation itself, not because it can guarantee a particular outcome, but because it gives clients more ways to respond when circumstances change. Her role is not to steer clients toward a particular kind of birth. It is to help them understand their options, trust their own instincts, communicate what they need, and feel supported when the path changes.
Alongside her doula work, Maddie is a doctoral candidate in Screen Cultures at Northwestern University, where she studies sensation and everyday experience in digital media. Much of her research asks how seemingly small experiences—a feeling, a sound, a moment of discomfort or pleasure—shape the ways we move through the world. Her work takes seriously experiences that are easily overlooked, particularly those that resist straightforward description. Birth work, for Maddie, grows out of a similar attentiveness: a belief that small sensations, gestures, preferences, and changes can matter enormously, and that careful attention to them can be a form of care.
