I am a queer, non-binary, full spectrum birth worker. I am white, neurodivergent and sober. I live on native Cowlitz land in so called Portland, Oregon. I stand for queer and trans rights, for people to freely identify anywhere on the gender spectrum and for all things relating to reproductive justice. I believe that ALL people have the right to make choices for their own bodies. I am anti-racist and continually try to educate myself in harm reducing practices that lift up people of color. I look for ways to create health and balance for myself, so that I can fight against the injustices and oppression caused by white supremacy, capitalism and the patriarchy. I refuse to burn out, so I partake in the belief that rest is a necessary form of resistance.

I believe that birth impacts humanity in ways we do not acknowledge and much less understand. Because of this, I am driven to be part of a revolution that empowers ALL birthing people to be informed, maintain autonomy throughout their reproductive experiences, and be supported in the choices that they decide are best for their families and for their bodies.

My arrival in this work is due to the ground shifting experience I had in birthing my daughter. I was captivated by every piece of it from watching my body soften and expand in pregnancy, to getting lost in another dimension throughout labor, meeting the human my body made for the very first time and going through a necessary death to self in postpartum. I still can’t make sense of how any of it happened really, but I’m eternally grateful for all of it.

I never would have guessed that I would end up in this type of work, but now that I’m here, it only makes sense. I could be holding someone’s hand as they ride through another contraction, rocking a new babe all night while their parents get longer stretches of sleep, or I am providing someone with healing herbs and it feel like I’ve done this in another life.

I see the ways in which people experience fertility, pregnancy, birth, loss and raising babies are so incredibly varied, that they are all valid and should be seen and heard. I learn this more and more the longer I continue in this work. I hope to meet people where they are, to have questions ready for them that are useful in helping them make the next step and to create safer spaces for all feelings to be felt and moved through.

Here for you,

Ari (they/them/she/her)