LGBTQ+ Affirming Doulas in Rockford, IL

Meet Mikala: Your Dedicated Birth Worker With eight years of experience as a certified birth worker, Mikala has supported over 125 clients, guiding them through their unique birthing journeys. Her passion for this work shines through in every interaction, ensuring that you feel supported and heard every step of the way. Mikala believes in the importance of inclusivity and makes it a priority to involve everyone you wish to have as part of your birthing experience. She respects and advocates for your desires, helping to create a personalized and empowering birth environment. Mikala is well-versed in attending all types of births, bringing a wealth of knowledge and a calm presence to each situation. She understands the significance of listening to moms and honoring their individual needs and preferences. A Little About Mikala: Mikala is a mother of four, with children ranging in age from 6 to 15. Her personal birthing experiences include two medical hospital births and two free births, giving her a well-rounded perspective on different birthing options. This diverse background fuels her mission to ensure every mother feels validated in her choices and confident in their body’s capabilities. She has breastfed all of her children for a combined total of 9.5 years, an impressive milestone that speaks to her commitment and expertise. Mikala has navigated various parenting approaches, from using disposable and cloth diapers to using premade canned baby food to practicing baby-led weaning. When she's not supporting families, Mikala enjoys homeschooling her children and managing her homestead, embodying a holistic and nurturing lifestyle. Mikala’s Expertise Includes: Thriving in all birth settings Baby-Wearing Cloth Diapering Breastfeeding PLC Childbirth Education Postpartum Care Placenta Specialist Rebozo Techniques Bereavement PAILAdvocate LGBT+ Friendly Some Spanish Speaking Blessingway / MotherBlessing Neurodivergent Support Mikala is dedicated to providing comprehensive care and support, ensuring that every family she works with feels empowered and understood throughout their birthing and parenting journeys.

Hello, I'm Rebecca, and I have nurtured and helped children aged six weeks through school-age succeed in learning for the past 20+ years. While working with infants exclusively for the past 15 years, I have found my passion. After raising two children, I am following my dream of caring for infants, newborns, and their parents. I have been helping parents with their newborns for over a year now and I love it! I'm also passionate about helping parents successfully return to work while breastfeeding. As a result, I created and implemented a training for daycare teachers entitled “Supporting Breastfeeding Parents in a Daycare Setting.” I believe empowering parents to be their child’s first teacher is essential for keeping children happy and healthy. I am a trained Newborn Care Specialist and a Postpartum Doula. I have taken a “Lactation for Doulas” class, a sleep conditioning class, and have attended a training on perinatal mood disorders. I look forward to supporting parents and other family members as they care for their new charges. Outside of work, I am a published author, and I enjoy writing about everything from infant care to Science Fiction. I love reading and have an extensive library of children’s books.

I believe every person has the right to informed care and the right to birth their baby with respect and dignity. I meet my clients where they are at, and walk alongside them, helping them to navigate through their journeys to parenthood. It is an honor and a blessing to hold space for the families I support during these pivotal moments in their lives.

Hello! I'm Aubrey and I am a Birth Doula serving greater chicagoland! My interest in birth has been a consistent theme throughout my life. Long before starting my own family, I found myself asking every little detail of the birth stories shared by friends and family. However, my true passion for the subject emerged during my own pregnancy and through the birth of my daughter. It was then that I dove into a myriad of birth resources, podcasts, and books, which is a habit that continues to this day! As a firm believer in the power of education, I advocate for individuals to approach their birthing experiences with confidence, armed with knowledge. This philosophy led me to pursue a career as a doula, where I can actively support and empower others during their own amazing journeys!

I started my journey in postpartum support over a decade ago supporting pregnant and parenting teens living in a group home together. This experience laid the foundation for my love of supporting moms, and taught me the importance of community supports. After a decade long career in corporate recruiting, and my own journey into motherhood, I found myself being pulled back to supporting moms. As a mother who has navigated her own postpartum mood disorder, I am passionate about fostering connections and creating the supportive “villages” that families need. I have trained as a Newborn Care Specialist and Postpartum Doula, and over the past year, I have had the privilege of providing compassionate support to families in my community. I approach each family with warmth and authenticity, aiming to create a safe space where they can thrive. My goal is to empower families and help them navigate their unique journeys with confidence. I look forward to being a part of your family's support system as you embark on this incredible adventure.

Hi, I'm Jennifer! I am thrilled to be a Co-Founder of Stateline BirthKeepers. I am a mother of 4 children, a certified EMT, a yoga instructor, and a homesteader. I have been working in the birthing world for the past 15 years as a birth doula since I received my training through DONA International in Chicago, IL, from some of the most amazing women. I am also our facilitator of the Closing of the Bones Ceremonies, a certified dancing for birth instructor, and a placenta encapsulation specialist. I provide other services such as Belly Casting, Rebozo techniques, Birth Photography and blessing way ceremonies. I accept no more than 2 birth doula clients each month, so you can rest easy. I can't wait to meet you and I look forward to assisting you on this journey to meeting your baby!

Every childbearing person deserves to feel supported, prepared, and unafraid as they navigate the wonders of pregnancy and childbirth. I’m both passionate and absolutely fascinated by this right of passage, and it is my highest privilege to guide others within their own birth stories. I became interested in childbirth education and birthwork when I was pregnant with our first baby. My partner and I attended a Bradley Method course kind of as a fluke, and it was life-changing. I did not realize how much I did not know! In addition to completing the Bradley Method course and experiencing the birth of my two children, I have worked in child and infant care for many years, including private nanny services, NatureSense Childcare Center, and The Madison Isthmus Montesorri Nedo (or nursery). I completed my Full Spectrum Doula Training, including prenatal, labor, birth, and postpartum care, as well as training in fetal positioning and lactation support with Cornerstone Birthwork Training, and am certified in Pediatric CPR/AED/First Aid through the Red Cross. I specialize in whole-food nutrition and dietary considerations for those with autoimmune disease and chronic illness. I live with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Crohn’s Disease and have been developing and collecting recipes and home remedies for over 10 years! I’m an expert swaddler, baby bather, sleep wrangler, lullaby lilter, routine guru, space optimizing organizer, Story reader, and love to color and play Legos with kid siblings.

Hi everyone! I'm Angel, a wife, mom of four, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), trained full-spectrum doula, and maternal-child health educator. I'm passionate about walking alongside families as they navigate pregnancy, postpartum, infant feeding, and the transition into parenthood. I provide compassionate, evidence-based care that supports not only your baby's needs, but yours as well. My goal is to create a warm, judgment-free space where you feel heard, supported, and confident in the decisions you make for your family. As a mom of four, I know firsthand that pregnancy, feeding, recovery, and life with a new baby can be beautiful but it can also be exhausting, emotional, confusing, and sometimes incredibly lonely. So often, parents are surrounded by advice while still feeling like no one is truly caring for them. That's why I'm so passionate about this work. Whether I'm helping with feeding challenges, caring for your baby while you shower or rest, answering newborn questions, or simply offering reassurance during a difficult day, my hope is that every family I work with feels a little more cared for, a little more confident, and a lot less alone.

Chaka is a Birth and Postpartum Doula, Newborn Care Specialist and Certified Lactation Counselor who has been supporting families in the Western Suburbs since 2014. She believes in informing, empowering and supporting families prenatally, during birth and postnatally. Her passion for birth work started when she was looking for a doula for the birth of her second child. After working with her birth clients, she realized the need and importance of also providing postpartum support. Chaka enjoys working with all family types and sizes and specializes in the care of families with multiples.

I have a BA in pre-medicine and I am currently working towards a master's degree in reproductive science and medicine, which I expect to complete in June 2025. I am planning to apply for physician's assistant programs next, with the goal of working as an OB/Gyn provider. Being a doula allows me to connect with and support the women in my community while I am in school to become a medical provider. Because of my background in science and medicine, my practice as a doula is research-based. I provide clients with personalized, accurate information to help facilitate conversations with their doctors so they can make the best decisions for their birth plan. I support hospital-birth clients, and I aim to eliminate the stigma surrounding medicated births.

My name is Ilana(she/her) and I am dedicated to working with a wide range of family structures and clients. My hope is that I can help people find the space for what they need. ​ Everyone deserves safe, comforting, affirming, and secure care. It would be a beautiful and humbling experience to be a part of that process with you.​

--Continuing my training with BADT for Full Spectrum Doula work-- I started Doula work after my first child was born, when I realized how much I didn't know and how much I wanted to know. I want to help other parents, especially first timers and queer families, feel confident and supported during their journey to parenthood. I'm passionate for advocacy as well and will stand for your choices during birth, whatever those may be. I'm bisexual and love to support LGBTQIA+ families in their parenting journey. I'm learning Anti-Racism and will always stand against discrimination and racism, especially when it comes to the medical field. I believe birthwork is activism and strive to include that in every aspect of my work. I offer free consultations, birth education and support, body/breastfeeding education and postpartum education. I am open to last minute bookings. I offer sliding scale/discounts for lower income families.

The Birth Zone is an agency serving families from Chicago through Milwaukee with childbirth education and birth doula services. We specialize in providing non-judgmental support for all families. We serve all kinds of births including hospital, home, medication-free, epidural, water birth, and land births.

I combine education, evidence-based research, and hands-on support to help you have an entirely different kind of labor and birth. Whatever kind of birth you are planning, I am here to support your choices. I work at hospital births, home births, and birth centers. Some of my clients choose an epidural for pain management, and others choose to go med-free: I'm here to support whatever YOU choose. I serve many high-anxiety clients, as well as high-risk pregnancies and VBACs (vaginal birth after cesarean). Many of my clients are international, and English is often their second language. My team and I value diversity and inclusivity.

Hello, My name Is Lorraine. I prefer to go by Raine. I'm a full spectrum doula (birth, postpartum and bereavement), placenta expert/encapsulator, childbirth & lamaze educator and more. I have been providing doula service even before being certified. I've been providing services since I was thirteen. It's part of my culture, It's just naturally in me. I made it official a little under four years ago. I have attended 50+ births. Providing birth and postpartum care. I feel birth is a judgement free zone. I focus on keeping birth peaceful, using evidence-based information and techniques. I enjoy music, spending time with family & friends, reading books & literature and just seeking knowledge. I have upwards of twenty specialties. I can't wait to share with you.

Hi! I'm Victoria, a certified birth and postpartum doula in the Madison, WI area. I truly enjoy getting to know and support new & expecting parents throughout their pregnancy and postpartum journey. I believe birth is a beautiful, natural, and empowering experience, no matter how you choose to bring your baby into the world. As your doula, I hope to provide evidenced-based information, advocate for your needs and affirm your choices in birth. In the postpartum period, my goal is to show up for whatever you are needing that day, whether its lactation support, newborn care while you catch up on sleep, or cooking a meal for your family. I want to provide your family the space to enjoy this new chapter, while feeling fully supported. I am a certified birth doula through DONA international and currently working on certification as a postpartum doula. I'm trained in the use of TENS units and hypnobirthing, as well as a certified childbirth educator. Outside of my work as a doula, I am a perinatal mental health therapist specializing in women's & LGBTQ+ health.