Editor's Note: Meet one of the newest members of the Emerald Doulas team! Birth Doula, Vanessa Safie, joined the EmDo Team this summer when she moved to North Carolina from Florida. She brings a wealth of experience, calm, and quiet confidence to her clients and their birth spaces.

You can read her full bio on our "Meet the Team" page, and learn a few extra, fun tidbits below!

1: Give us a three word summary of who you are.

Caffeinated. Witty. Efficient.

2: What drew you to a career as a doula?

What drew me to a career as a doula was the trauma my best friend felt during her first birth. I wanted to be there to hold her hand. So, I stuck my encyclopedia cd into my computer and found the definition a doula. I knew I wanted to be in service to anyone who would have me.

3: What's rocking your world right now, in birth or in parenting?

What's rocking my world in birth right now is the conversations happening around black maternal mortality, inclusion of trans people in the community, and the voices of those who have suffered trauma and assaults during their births being raised.

I'm doing a lot of reading and listening because it feels momentous.

4: When you're not doula-ing, where are we most likely to find you?

When I'm not doula-ing you can likely find me at one of my favorite coffee shops or playgrounds with my toddler. If I'm not there I'm in my kitchen baking something up!

5: What's your Top 5 Registry Must Haves for new parents?

A Ring Sling! (I would say any baby wearing apparatus, but a ring sling is my all time favorite because of how long it can be used.)
Halo sleep sacks
Side car/co sleeper
Manual breast pump
Travel high chair

Bonus Fun Facts: In addition to English, Vanessa is also fluent in French and Spanish (she's conversational in Haitian creole, too!). She's also the mother of a micropreemie, Jackson, who was born at 26 weeks, and spent 86 days in the NICU before his homecoming.

November is National Prematurity Awareness Month. In fact today, Nov. 17, is World Prematurity Day. Not that families who experience a baby’s early arrival aren’t aware of prematurity. Because we are. All day. Every day.

This is a fact that I know intimately.

It’s that walk, that awareness, of where your child began life that never leaves your mind. It’s an awareness that seeps into your bones, and becomes engrained with your DNA.

As I sit here today, writing these words, retelling our story, six and a half years out from her birth day, I have tears in my eyes and a knot in my throat. That’s because knowing where our daughter started life and where she is now, it breaks my heart and heals it all at the same time.