About Brave Journey

Brave Journey: Your Path to Birth Empowerment

Brave Journey transforms anxious expectant parents into confident advocates for their own birth experience. Through evidence-based, judgment-free childbirth education, you'll gain the knowledge and tools to navigate today's complex medical system while honoring your unique vision for birth.

What Makes Brave Journey Different:

• Advocacy-focused approach that teaches you to speak up for your needs in the birth room
• Personalized guidance that respects your individual birth goals, whether planning a hospital, birth center, or home birth
• Real-world preparation from someone who's witnessed countless births and understands what actually happens
• Trauma-informed education that helps you process fears and build genuine confidence

You'll Leave Our Course:

• Knowing your options and rights at every stage of labor and delivery
• Equipped with practical tools to communicate effectively with your care team
• Confident in your ability to make informed decisions under pressure
• Prepared for multiple birth scenarios, not just your "ideal" birth plan

Don't just learn about birth, prepare to own your birth experience. Because when you're educated, supported, and confident, you can focus on what matters most: safely welcoming your baby.

Ready to transform anxiety into empowerment? Your brave journey starts here.

About Cara

Meet Cara: Your Guide to an Empowered Birth Experience

Cara is a birth doula and childbirth educator who combines over a decade of advocacy experience with specialized training in birth work to help families achieve confident, empowering births.

From Advocate to Birth Expert

Cara spent the first decade of her career advocating for vulnerable populations: survivors of sexual violence, refugees navigating asylum systems, and newly resettled families. This work taught her how to help people navigate complex medical and institutional systems while maintaining their voice and dignity.

When preparing for her own first birth in 2012, Cara experienced firsthand how education and advocacy transformed her experience. By investing in a doula and comprehensive birth education, she and her spouse felt empowered and respected as active participants in their birth; an experience that changed the trajectory of her career.

Professional Training & Experience

• Birth doula with years of hands-on birth experience.
• Childbirth educator having served families throughout San Diego County and now the Phoenix Valley.
• Current program director at a Phoenix nonprofit specializing in trauma-informed care.
• Member of the Whole Mama Wellness Collective.

Why Choose Cara's Brave Journey?

Cara's unique background in advocacy means she doesn't just teach birth techniques, she empowers you to navigate the medical system confidently. Her courses go beyond basic birth education to help you:

• Examine and strengthen your unconscious and conscious beliefs about birth and parenting.
• Develop advocacy skills for the birth room.
• Create a personalized plan for an empowering birth experience.
• Build confidence through knowledge and preparation.

Your Birth, Your Way

Whether you're planning a hospital, birth center, or home birth, Cara's evidence-based approach and compassionate guidance will help you prepare for the intentional and empowering birth experience you deserve.

Cara's approach is trauma-aware, LGBTQIA+ inclusive, and nonjudgmental.

Credentials You Can Trust for Your Most Important Journey

When choosing who will guide you through birth preparation, credentials matter. Cara brings a rare combination of specialized birth training and real-world experience that ensures you receive evidence-based, compassionate education.

Birth-Specific Expertise

• Certified Professional Birth Doula (toLabor) with hands-on birth experience
• Birthing From Within Trained Childbirth Educator—a renowned approach that honors your unique birth vision
• Specialized Training with leading organizations including Evidenced Based Birth, Spinning Babies (optimal fetal positioning), Nurturely Milk Magic, and the San Diego Breastfeeding Center

Connected with the Birth Community

Cara maintains her skills through ongoing doula work with the respected team at Whole Mama Wellness Collective, meaning she stays current with real birth experiences and emerging best practices.

Academic Foundation & Holistic Approach

• Master's in Public Administration (University of Washington)—bringing systems thinking to birth advocacy
• BA in Anthropology (Arizona State University)—understanding cultural perspectives on birth
• Graduate Certificate in Migration and Refugee Studies (American University in Cairo)—deepening her advocacy skills
• Certified Yoga and Prenatal Yoga Teacher (Akasha Yoga, Soul of Yoga)—integrating mind-body wellness

Global Perspective, Local Impact

Cara's international work with refugees and current community leadership roles in nonprofit organizations demonstrate her commitment to empowering people through life's most challenging transitions, exactly the skill set you want when preparing for birth.

This isn't just theory, it's practical wisdom from someone who combines professional training with real experience helping families navigate their most important moments.

Grounding in Place: Indigenous Land Acknowledgement

Brave Journey is located in modern-day Phoenix, Arizona, on the ancestral lands of the Akimel O'odham tribe and before that the Hohokam people. This place has been the home of indigenous peoples since time immemorial. I honor the elders of past, present, and future generations of the Hohokam peoples and the Akimel O'odham nation (River People), also known as the Upper Pima, who are today part of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.

Indigenous ancestors developed the most advanced canal system in North America, engineering hundreds of miles of canals by hand to provide irrigation in the Sonoran Desert. Some of these historic canal courses still serve the Phoenix Valley today, including the flood irrigation water that reaches my home and nourishes the trees that shade my children as they play. I acknowledge this vital infrastructure that early colonizers, modern populations, and my family continue to benefit from, and I express gratitude for their stewardship of the land we currently occupy.