Bunky Bambino
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    • meet shaz
    • meet yvette
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The Journal — Reflections & Knowledge

My Doula Journey : The Now

19/2/2020

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As our on-call life thrived, and babies were joining us left, right and center. Marlo came to me with another proposition. Did I want to buy Bunky Bambino? I had to take a day and assess how this would change my life, my balance of things and my future.
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Another clueless and passion-driven YES, and the next chapter began. We planned together, with countless hours in coffee shops chatting logistics and working through the details. I spent months rebranding, figuring out what being a boss and agency owner would look like. How did I want to come to this? After some time, a few freak-outs, and a deep commitment to this work and team. And off to the races we went.
Now our team has grown by five, we have many more pillars of support for our team and external community and many more families have joined our ranks. To say I am blindingly grateful for where I am is still an understatement. The hard work, personal growth and love I have gained from our families, team and connections have been the real MVP of this career. I have been swept off my feet more than once, and yet the siren call of birth work has continued to draw me back into its arms.

Let’s see where the next few years get us, shall we...
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My Doula Journey : Wait, I have a career?

17/2/2020

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With a few more years under my belt, a lot of humbling experiences and many more families served I was now working as a full-time birth worker. Highs, lows, and the intensity of being a very young and (mostly) clueless entrepreneur was catching up to me.
Then on a fall day, I got a call from Marlo asking if I’d be interested in being her next birth business parter. Meaning, we would each have our own companies but be partnered up in taking on clients together and sharing our on-call time. Coming back with a resounding YES, we dove in and the work got more intense and my numbers rose even higher.
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I started getting more and more interested in women’s reproductive health at the same time and starting doing extensive research and putting on workshops. Teaching folks about the intricacies of our menstrual cycles, our reproductive health, and our bodies. It was deeply nourishing, and an intergenerational knowledge-sharing space that I didn’t even know I was craving. Women from all over the city would huddle around, we would joke, speak frankly and exchange stories of our journeys with our bodies.
About a year and a half passed and we were in a wonderful flow of families, births, postpartum support and full-spectrum care. This was it, I was in a position I had dreamed of years prior. My pinnacle, I felt so full and grateful for all I had worked for and was connected to.
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My Doula Journey : Schooling & Starting

17/2/2020

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With no hesitation, the blindness of youth, and a summer full of waitressing a tourist-filled DT Victoria, I was equipped to enter into the months of classes at Pacific Rim. From the entrance ceremony, and into every new class I was overwhelmed with how “right” everything felt. All my fellow budding Doulas were being broken down and built up right beside me, and every educator was right by our side. I sat in the front of every class, volunteered to be the “pregnant person” at every demo and left every day filled to the brim with validation.
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These were my people, this was my place and this was my new path. The sheer excitement and passion I felt drove me through school, building a website and starting off my first company - Pacific North Birth Services.
I started serving families right after my move-in Vancouver and supplemented my income working insanely early mornings at Spud. The glamour was deeply lacking, but my drive just kept pushing me forward. I would scooter off to postpartum shifts, meet & greets and prenatals, leaving each one beaming and thinking “THIS IS MY JOB!!!”.
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Soon enough, I was attending births and had connected with Morag (of Apple Blossom Families) as a mentor. Helping me attend my first full birth, all six and a half days of it… Again, my blind enthusiasm heralding me through hard work. Sleeping on the floor of the hospital, supporting Moms and almost catching a baby at home, all deep highlights of my beginnings in Doula work.
After about a year, Marlo found my site and reached out to me to interview me. We met in a JJ Bean, and over a giant icing filled cinnamon bun - she saw me. In all my naive passionate glory, and hired me on as the first Bunky Bambino postpartum team member. I like to think that she knew in that moment, that she would eventually pass the torch to me.
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My Doula journey : Before It All Began

14/2/2020

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​The power of sharing your story has been proven to me time and time again and has also been shown to be something that clients, fellow Doulas and Bunky families enjoy knowing. In saying so, I’ll be starting a little segment of my story into the birth and Doula world. How I entered it’s grasp and what my journey looked like from start to now.
I can’t identify when my Doula journey began, because it feels as though it’s always been a part of me. I was that kid who was perched on the edge of the bed soaking in every second of TLC’s “Bringing Back Baby”, and the one who jumped at any opportunity to sit by a new Mom and hold a little fresh baby.
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This turned into pursuing nannying post-high school and becoming a part of two families, in the process of growing and birthing their second children. I was fascinated and so involved in their pregnancies, and their first year postpartum. My heart was so full and I was enthralled, but knowing the medical field wasn’t the place for me - I thought that was it. I went on to Victoria, going to Uni for Art History and French and loathed the whole process. Rigid schedules, large class sizes and non-specific learning was not my slice of pie. One day, I opened my computer and the webpage for the Holistic Doula certificate (from Pacific Rim) stared right back at me. I read through it all and by the time I was at the bottom of the page, I was beaming. This was everything I loved, everything I was innately good at and all of my passions. Herbalism, massage, intuitive movement, anatomy & physiology, intro to Midwifery, and birth studies with a local Doula. Thus began my deep dive into the birth world...
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Smothering him a decade later!
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Bunky Team : Shania

12/2/2020

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Meeting Shania for the first time, I knew there was a special spark in her. Bounding onto the patio, in the heat of summer with as much energy as an Energizer Bunny. She was passionate, spry, and full of conviction. I knew that this budding Doula had a unique quality, and many of the same wild traits of myself in my earlier Doula days.

​Now that she has been cemented as a part of the Bunky team - as the loud, hilarious and opinionated one, no less! We are so grateful Shania serves our families with all her passion, now backed by evidence-based care, and her mix of deep knowing of Doula skills paired with the teachings of community mentors and a phenomenal training. 

Read more about her journey, story and what makes her unique - down below.
​So here we are, in the depths of the birth world, and like all who have their unique journey to getting here, mine was a long, uncomfortable path that I am still trying to account for. But we are here, and nowhere else has felt quite this right.  
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I studied journalism in college, with a focus in Women's issues. I’ve always been focused on women’s issues, really. Going back to my days of playdates with disappointed 6-year old friends and very impressed mother’s who raved about my helping hand in the kitchen but unwillingness to play Polly Pockets. I ended up excelling in school and was encouraged by a professor to continue on with my Master's in Women's studies. To “master” women at any age, let alone 22, how precarious. So I ended up deferring. 
 
Over the next couple years, I was very unsettled with my decision to step back from school. The universe was working overtime to push me in the right direction, but my stubbornness did not allow for it. I took my life and others for granted. Both mentally and physically I was unwell and unsatisfied. I really believe that the people with a strong, unharnessed energy are the ones who inflict unnecessary troubles in their lives or the lives of others accidentally.

I began working with different BIPOC groups, as well as crisis centres, just trying to satisfy some small part of me that longed to be of service to vulnerable people. I started writing a small zine; with the goal of creating a space for unknown femme creators to create freely without judgment. It was a great success, yet I still felt unsatisfied in my pursuits. 
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After relocating to Montreal, the last person I loved died in Toronto. And this changed the way I moved through life. I heard the word 'Doula' somewhere one day not long after their passing. I still don't know where I heard it, it’s as if a voice just whispered it to me. I actually had to Google it to find out what it meant. I’m still trying to backtrack to where I was or what I was reading, because I know the moment I heard it, I knew I would become it. 
 
So I reached out to my online community, and was quickly connected with a few doulas in the PNW, and they pointed me towards Doula Trainings International (DTI). I am still so thankful everyday for those strangers (now friends) who carved out time and space to guide me through the first steps of this journey. For introducing me to a community of fierce people who are always looking after each other. 
 
Becoming a doula has truly allowed me to direct all this unharnessed energy I possessed. To heal amongst the healing. To help others heal, with consent. To lend all of myself and be met with the same vigor. 
There was a long period before I found my calling as a doula, where I would constantly take it upon myself to help others who did not ask for my help. Acknowledging consent within lending energy has changed the way I serve all people in my life. 

There is a life before parenthood, much like there is a life before becoming a doula. And just like we believe our experiences shape how we parent, it is much the same for doula’s and how we serve. Being able to share our journey into this work with you, is just another way for us to connect more authentically. 

With each birth and family I have the pleasure of supporting, I grow a deeper understanding of myself as a helper, as well as the collective power of humankind. It is a great privilege to have curiosity and compassion be at the centre of both my work and my life.
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    Author

    A deeper dive with Emma (owner, birth & postpartum Doula) into social media and our posts. 
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    What makes the backbone of Bunky Bambino, filled with tips & tricks, reflections on the birth / postpartum world, and knowledge we think is worth sharing with you all.

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Operating on the unceded Indigenous territories of the ʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh).

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  • ABOUT
    • COVID-19 Protocols
    • testimonials
  • OUR TEAM
    • meet alana
    • meet allie
    • meet carissa
    • meet chloe
    • meet emma d
    • meet emma m
    • meet hayaat
    • meet karli
    • meet michelle
    • meet rachel
    • meet roberta
    • meet shaz
    • meet yvette
  • OUR SERVICES
    • birth doulas
    • postpartum support
    • lactation consultant
    • chef at home
    • placenta encapsulation
  • bunky portal
    • staff portal
    • free info-graphs
  • the journal
  • contact