TRANSFORM YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE UNKNOWN
DESCEND: IMMERSIVE BIRTH PREP THAT TAKES YOU INTO THE DEPTHS
YOU’RE THE INFORMED BIRTHER.
You’ve got your research, your podcasts, your books. You surround yourself with information as a shield against the unknown. If you just do everything right (eat the dates! do the stretches! make all the right decisions!), you can stay in control. Avoid tearing or a C section. Make sure birth isn’t too hard or too scary.
BUT BIRTH ISn’T SOMETHING TO OUT-THINK.
IT’s SOMETHING TO DESCEND INTO.
And to do that, you’ve got to GET OUT OF YOUR THINKING BRAIN AND LEARN HOW TO FEEL YOUR WAY THROUGH THE DEPTHS oF INTENSITY AND UNCERTAINTY.
LETTING GO IS THE SCARIEST THING BIRTH WILL ASK OF YOU.
Because holding on feels so much safer. You’ve always kept a tight grip on life, bending it to your will. There hasn’t been a project you couldn’t conquer with more. More research. More thinking. Trying harder. Powering through.
BUT Birth is going to ask you to do the exact opposite.
It’s going to take you to the edge and then see if you’re brave enough to surrender. And the birthers who can… they’re not the ones trying to do everything “right.” They’re the ones who have built the capacity to be with intensity and uncertainty without spiraling or shutting down. They’ve created embodied safety, so that when they let go, they’re falling into the truest, deepest version of themselves.
“The preparation [Kate] offers touches on the practical as well as something equally critical and less tangible — the spiritual, if you will.” - Mary F.
“Because of Kate, I feel like my labor and delivery was a journey that I was an active participant in rather than it happening to me.” - Brittany W.
“She’s a breath of fresh air, a wealth of knowledge and the coach you want if you’re hoping for a transformative birth that brings the physical act of delivering your child with a spiritual and healing experience together in a hospital setting.” - Alex R.
WHAT DOES LETTING GO IN BIRTH ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE?
IT LOOKS LIKE…
• tuning into your body and moving, breathing, and releasing intuitively in a way that supports the labor process
• reconnecting to your inner sense of knowing and your intuition, in order to make decisions that feel right in your gut
• communicating with providers about your priorities, decisions, and boundaries in a way that respects the humanity of everyone
• sinking fully into your descent rituals, trusting your partner to be your thinking mind while you labor
• flowing through challenges, honoring your values and keeping birth sacred no matter what comes up
• relying on your inner skills to navigate the unexpected instead of crossing your fingers that everything goes “perfectly”
ARE YOU PREPARED TO DROP DOWN INTO BIRTH’S DEPTHS?
DESCEND
six self-paced modules
lessons + ritual + embodiment practice
soul-deep prep for birth’s unknowns
DESCEND TRANSFORMS HOW YOU MOVE THROUGH CHALLENGE.
FROM INTELLECT TO INTUITION.
Birth doesn’t unfold in your thinking brain. It unfolds in your body. Your muscles and bones. Your soft tissues.
Your nervous system. Your exquisitely dynamic hormonal landscape.
Becoming truly embodied is feeling what is needed from inside yourself.
FROM AVOIDANCE TO ACCEPTANCE.
You can’t change obstetric culture and you can’t change the way the hospital works.
Once you accept this, you can create an environment that centers you and recognizes your own humanity — and that of everyone on your team. (This is the real way to change birth culture).
FROM PERFECTION TO PRESENCE.
There is no perfect way to birth, no magic formula to follow.
There is true presence. There is being in what is, no matter how how messy or complicated, instead of clinging to what you thought birth would look like. This immersion allows you to drop down and truly experience your journey.
FROM RESISTANCE TO RELEASE.
So often we want to push away from what is hard or uncertain. Birth will take you straight to the heart of intensity and the unknown, most likely in a way you never expected.
Learn to release, even when you’re scared or unsure, into the deepest parts of yourself.
FROM FORCE TO FLOW.
Birth asks you to move in a different way.
You cannot force yourself to open or force your baby to descend.
Instead, you must soften in the face of intensity and let it flow through you.
You must become so open to the process that you become the process itself.
FROM Certainty TO SELF-TRUST.
You don’t need to know exactly where the path leads. In birth or in life.
You need to cultivate deep trust in yourself. That you will know what you need at each stage and that you will find the magic where you least expect it. All you can do is walk the path in accordance with your deepest values.
THIS IS SOUL-LEVEL PREP FOR MEETING THE UNKNOWN IN BIRTH AND BEYOND.
MODULES
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Explore what it means to become the environment of your birth.
1.1: The Environment of You
1.2: Expanding Your Capacity for Intensity
1.3: Your Response to Intensity
1.4: Making the Hard Sacred
1.5: Safety in Intensity Ritual
1.6: Embodiment Practice
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Explore the environment of birth and its connection to the unknown.
2.1: The Environment of Birth
2.2: Birth as Descent
2.3: Navigating the Unknown
2.4: Safety in Uncertainty Ritual
2.5: Embodiment Practice
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Explore how to create an external environment that supports your descent in labor.
3.1: The External Environment of Labor
3.2: The Role of the Partner
3.3: Crafting the External Environment
3.4: Partner Support During Labor
3.5: Partner Support During Pushing
3.6: Partner Support Post Birth
3.7: Sacred Environment Ritual
3.8: Embodiment Practice
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Explore the internal rituals and rhythms that support your descent in labor.
4.1: The Internal Environment of Labor
4.2: The Experience of Labor
4.3: Layered Descent Rituals
4.4: Losing Your Shit
4.5: Cultivating an Internal Environment during Cesarean Birth
4.6: Descent Ritual
4.7 Embodiment Practice
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Learn to navigate the familiar (to Western culture) yet foreign (to birth) environment of the hospital
5.1: The Hospital Environment
5.2: Safety is Complex
5.3: Safety Through the Obstetric Lens
5.4: Your View of Safety
5.5: Navigating Your Birth Care
5.6: Making Decisions in Labor
5.7: Communicating Your Decisions
5.8: Partner Advocacy Ritual
5.9: Embodiment Practice
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Explore how you can make birth sacred — no matter how it unfolds.
6.1: Re-Mystify Your Birth
6.2: Letting Go
6.3: Releasing
6.4: Partner Support When Birth is Hard
6.5: Partner Support in a Birth Emergency
6.6: Mystery as Your Co-Creator
6.7: Softening in Challenge Ritual
6.8: Embodiment Practice
THE LAYERS OF DESCEND
Each module has three components to translate new skills into muscle memory.
01
LESSON
immerse yourself in the deepest skills of birth prep, reflecting on your own patterns and how to expand your capacity to hold intensity and uncertainty
02
RITUAL
craft your ritual for rooting the skills from each module into your body, giving yourself the lived experience of new ways of being
03
EMBODIMENT PRACTICE
movement flows that build a balanced, responsive body, unlocking intuitive knowledge of how to move your body in labor
WHAT MY CLIENTS SAY
“Kate was so thoughtful and nuanced and really helped me listen to what was best for me personally. In the end, I was able to have a VBAC with a provider/hospital that was not as known for VBACs but was supportive.” - BEATRICE L.
“As a first time mom, my wish for every pregnant person in the world, other than a safe and simple pregnancy / labor / delivery, would be to have a doula supporting them through it — but specifically Doula Kate.” - Katie R.
“Kate played is crucial role in my successful VBAC.” - Julie C.
“I ended up having the most INCREDIBLE induction and felt like I was able to have the dream birth I imagined, despite the unforeseen challenges. Kate empowered me to make every decision myself, giving me an amazing sense of control in my birth story.” - MEAGHAN D.
“I truly feel like she made a monumental difference to our birth experience and we are forever grateful to her for her care and support.” - Alexandra C.
“She is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about safe and empowering hospital birth.” - CLaire B.
“I wanted a sacred birth, and I wanted to be prepared. Kate taught me all the things I COULD control, and taught me how to still feel safe with all the things I COULDN'T control.
Because of Kate, when my birth unexpectedly went in a totally new direction, I was able to stay present and focused and engaged. Because of the preparation we had done, my emergency C-section wasn't traumatizing, it was sacred and special.” - Deborah C.
“Through Kate’s guidance, I became so empowered and prepared for my birth— regardless of the outcome. She was so compassionate and understanding of all my wishes. My VBAC was successful and I truly believe it was because of all the knowledge and empowerment I had gained during my pregnancy and labor, thanks to Kate. She is an expert and research-based.” - Allie N.
WHEN YOU LEARN TO MEET THE UNKNOWN IN BIRTH, YOU CARRY THAT EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE WITH YOU INTO POSTPARTUM, PARENTHOOD, AND BEYOND.
○ You can hold the intensity of the newborn days and postpartum haze, without dissociating.
○ You can truly be in relationship with your new baby, both of you changing each other and learning together, without being carried away by whatever parenting craze is currently flooding your algorithm.
○ You can experience the integration of who you were with who you are becoming as an ever-evolving process, without feeling terrified you’ll never get your old life “back.”
○ You can walk the path of the unknown (i.e. life) with clarity, intuition, and embodiment.
INVESTMENT
$197
instant access to the full course materials
ARE YOU READY TO
RE-MYSTIFY YOUR BIRTH
Practice the skills that will actually help you turn the hardest moments in birth into the most sacred.
FAQs
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The sooner you start Descend, the more opportunities you’ll have to practice the skills in your body in your regular life. The point isn’t just to prepare for labor; it’s to practice meeting intensity and uncertainty in a new way for the rest of your life. The first trimester, with its nausea and exhaustion and emotional ups and downs, is the perfect time to start learning these new skills.
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Descend isn’t a quick fix. It’s a set of embodied skills that needs to be practiced. While you could binge the course in a weekend, I highly recommend you give yourself at least several weeks to actually integrate these skills into your daily life.
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Descend is for anyone who wants to build capacity to hold the intensity of labor, whether you plan to labor completely unmedicated or you’re open to using pain medication.
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Descend is designed for people who plan to labor. While we explore how the skills you learn might be adapted in the case of an in-labor Cesarean, Descend has a heavy focus on preparing to navigate contractions and labor. If you’re planning to give birth by C section without going into labor, there are probably better birth prep classes out there to meet your specific needs.
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Yes! There is an entire module on navigating the hospital system, so that you can understand the medical perspective on birth and be prepared for productive conservations with your health care provider.
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Yes! While I do have an entire module on navigating the hospital environment, all of the skills inside Descend are important for birth in any setting. I’ve been teaching birth prep for a while, but it was only after my experience of my third birth (at home!) that Descend came together.
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The program is made up of 6 modules, each with a video lesson, a ritual to practice in your regular life, and an embodiment practice to prepare your body for labor.
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If possible, I highly recommend doing Descend with a partner, whether that’s your life partner or your friend, mom, sister, etc. Your job in labor is to descend, and your birth partner’s job is to be your thinking brain and create the environment in the room that will best allow you to surrender to labor. Descend will teach you both the skills you’ll need.