Blissful initiation into Motherhood is your birthright
A romantic birth is your birthright
Prepare with spiritual care.
While you are here:
Find out by taking a Deep Dive into Living Waters with Deep Dive Doula.
A 3x3irth is marked by 3 hours or less of active labour, 3 golden hours of bonding time and 3 births - the birth of the Mother, the birth of the Father and the birth of the baby. This does not have to be the first baby for either parent to choose Intentional Parenting or Intentional Birth whereby they accept the initiation into parenthood and intentionally step into the archetypes of mother and father.
Active, present and prepared. The partner’s love is your oxytocin drip.
Deep Dive Doula prepares you for a 3x3irth through a deep dive into Living Waters and Intentional Pregnancy. Intentionally allowing for the opening and expanding of your body and life; with practical considerations like maternity clothing, diet, and movement as well as higher level disciplines like Intentional Language and Intentional Living. This means reclaiming your birth narrative for your ideal birth and pregnancy and reclaiming your mental and emotional space from fear-based birth narratives and hold space to birth intentionally in love.
Deep Dive Doulas are somatically attuned spiritual care specialists accompanying you through the months and weeks prior to and after your birth event with a course of preparatory counseling and somatic investigation. The Deep Dive Doula inquiry enables you to circumvent potential complications arising out of fear-based narratives of childbirth and sexual and generational trauma.
As soon as possible!
Ideally, we will be meeting weekly during the second and third trimester and tapering our frequency over the fourth trimester. Not to worry if you are already in your third trimester - we will swim in the waters you are in.
Deep Dive Doula offers an intensive course of counseling embracing the intensity of emotional and transitional experiences of this time. We have a solid target date to surface from our Deep Dive and so we can allow our inquiry to be as ambitious as each individual person and couple wants it to be.
We Deep Dive in so there are no surprises when the baby comes out.
The 3 hours after birth when you and your baby are full of oxytocin - the love drug - and your partner has just seen your superhero side. This is the time of skin-to-skin and the first latch of colostrum breastfeeding - setting off the cascade of hormones and contractions that loose your placenta and amniotic sac and redirect the nourishment flowing to your womb to start flowing to your chest.
The first latch is the foundation of breastfeeding. Breastfeeding and bonding oxytocin forms the foundation of relationship, immunity and microbiome. Evidence points to a reduced risk of developing many common diseases with breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is the best feeding (I am biased). The chemistry of the first latch also allows your placenta to detach naturally (with endogenous drugs) without any ‘light’ traction and this lowers the risk of infection or hemorrhaging.
This is the key! We allow the prodromal labour to occur within our sex and orgasm and during our waking life - allowing us to familiarize ourselves with the feeling of the oxytocin waves pulsing through us - this is where we meet the feeling of an onset so we are prepared to meet the intense contractions when they come.
Sleep!! If you can...
Your newborn will sleep for the longest stretch of consecutive hours now (approximately 9 hours) and won’t again for some time! You are high on oxytocin and superhero super consciousness - you may not be able to sleep - you can journal about your experience - or record your story or share reflections of your experience with your partner - or just lay back and enjoy your high flowing fearlessly in Living Waters.
What is your ideal birth?
Philosophy starts with faith - the foundation of all else - the infinite regress upon which all rests - the point when we finally say ok, on this I will build - so here in a congruently meta way, we build on the foundation of faith.
It all comes down to faith. It all comes from faith.
There is no question with faith and there is no question that we have faith.
The question is faith in what?
Yes I am taking about my faith in the one God.
You don’t have to have that kind of faith to have faith.
you have faith in the future.
You have faith in your unborn child - you have faith that your child will be able to make the journey from within you to with you.
Your child has faith in you - your child has faith that you are able to bring them forth into this future in your arms.
Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth?
I have faith in the almighty God - I have faith that the word is good and your prayers will be answered.
I have faith that this journey you are on is an answer to your prayers.
I have faith that you have the power to pray prayers - prayers that you are aware of and prayers you may not think of as prayers.
ask and ye shall receive
I have faith that you are here because you have more prayers and are ready to pray those prayers with a renewed depth of intentionally and responsibility to the future.
I have faith that you are ready to take the Deep Dive into living waters.
Deep Dive Doula takes the opportunity to explore the depths of our unexamined narrative surrounding birth - our unaware prayer - we bring into healing light and forgive the unaware prayer when we begin to pray our prayers that reflect our acceptance of the journey of birthing as a journey of initiation.
Training for the marathon of birth is not only physical
Sports psychologists call it visualization - musicians call it rehearsing - modern inquiry calls this the placebo effect - modern gurus call it manifestation - you can call it anything you want, the power is real, the power is palpable and the power is yours.
Write your birth narrative - not your birth plan
Deep Dive Doula offers a specialized approach to birth - we attend to spirit first and foremost and allow for spirit to write the physical path as we open in faith - transforming the experience of birthing into the mystical initiation channeling the ever-flowing living waters.
Approaching the matter of physical birth from a spiritual perspective, we explore with client-centered counseling in preparation for the deep dive of the endogenous high of the opening of the matrix in the birth experience.
This is your initiation - this is your birthright - this is your heritage - this is your inheritance.
I have faith in you.
Deep Dive Doula Pamela is a musician, actor, aerialist, arts educator, spiritual care provider & Mother approaching the matter of physical birth from a spiritual perspective - liberating the sovereignty of parents by joining and guiding them through a Deep Dive into the Living Waters of parenthood and finding the place to embrace a life of intentional living.
Intentional Living is the philosophy that empowers us to join in the creation of the new world (the future) with our choices now - by begetting the next generation and building up our children as the keystone in the gateway to the future.
Intentional Living takes responsibility and sovereignty in being a generational generator and upholds one’s own nature of love with intention rather than allowing a sacrificed intentionality to sacrifice our nature of love. Love is not for sale.
This means Intentional Pregnancy, Intentional Parenting and Intentional Birthing - it means that we approach all things with Intentional Discovery.
The Deep Dive Doula holds a foundational philosophy that our current lives are an answered prayer and that it is our birthright to choose an intentional future, pray an intentional prayer and lead an intentional life.
It all comes down to faith. It all comes back to faith.
I needed faith to open to the experience of a free birth.
I needed faith in my self and my ability.
I needed faith in my partner and his ability.
I needed faith in my daughter and her ability.
I need faith most of all that indeed this was what the Lord wanted me to do.
And for that...
I needed faith.
I asked the question - and my prayer was answered.
In free birth I found the way of love, of truth and of life.
And now...
I am giving my life to tell this truth of what love is.
It is my lived experience that the encounter of carrying a baby to term - expanding to allow life to enter - and giving birth - expanding to allow life passage - is an initiation into the archetype of mother. From the maiden to the mother we become new. This anointing of archetypal initiation is not default as it once was - today we must undertake with intentionality to allow the birth and peak experience to be a journey of initiation.
Intentional initiation carries with it the challenges and rewards of claimed birthright. Experience informs expectation. Unless we take an intentional approach to forming our narrative we will repeat the narrative given to us by others.
In my pregnancy and birthing I had assumptions and expectations, and when I realized how much I had accepted as normal and how little I had bothered to question about this seemingly insignificantly short moment of time I felt some shame, but I also saw the opportunity to write a new narrative, intentionally.
The path of discovery I followed altered my expectations and I had a different experience of birth than many know is possible. I had an experience of love and empowerment rather than a life or death scheduled emergency. I had the experience of a heavenly conversation and Motherly Initiation.
Empowered birth is possible with proper protection and preparation - many will say you will know what you need to do - but nowhere did I find the simple truth that all “labour” can be fruitful. From what I could discover through my research most people describe labour contractions as intense cramps. What I experienced was more of a Charlie Horse feeling - and l thus found relief and effectiveness of work by learning to activate the surrounding muscle groups to rig the work within my abdominal cavity.
All labour can be fruitful
Fruitful contractions feel good and they work! My discovery granted that one will have intuition and you will know what you need (often, I see stories where the stalled labour will be to ‘wait’ for the expert to arrive). The simple fact is that you don’t need to suffer through tiring and unfruitful contractions to appease some timer. Just stop the contraction. Yes, it is that simple - you can stop the engagement and move into a different position that will be beneficial to the next stage of progress. The only trick is learning the difference between what fruitful and unfruitful work feels like - fruitful feels great - unfruitful feels terrible.
Love is the chemical functionality of birth
From my own experience I know how much my deep dive life philosophy has led me to this point to be able to free my physicality from hang ups and adhesions, to lean into my anatomical awareness and trust my comfort with research and analyzing data - I know that if I didn’t take the deep dive to find all the hidden treasures within I would not be able to embrace the intensity of the physical, emotional and spiritual opening asked of me in the birthing work.
The Deep Dive is a reclaiming of your inheritance - the parts of you that have been dismissed as evil, ugly or otherwise undesirable - we feed these undernourished parts of ourselves and in the work we learn we are parenting ourselves, developing both the capacity to give tender love, but also the capacity to receive love. The capacity to receive love is the chemical functionality of birth; the capacity to open to love is the physical reality of birth and the capacity to give love becomes the strength of our family and, the corner stone of the next generation.
My Deep Dive allowed me to birth free.
Free birth is dangerous. The deep dive is dangerous, you may not emerge the same person, you may lose friends, your family may not understand. The deep dive is dangerous to this you - the ‘you’ that emerges is not the same ‘you’ that entered - you must accept and embrace that a new you will emerge - a you rebirthed through the initiation of Living Waters.
Education is the preparatory toolkit we draw on to understand and follow what is being asked in each moment and in each person’s journey of discovery. Deep Dive Doula education consists of transferable credits.
Doula education is varied. Deep Dive Doula offers a specialized approach to birth - approaching the matter of physical birth from a spiritual perspective. Most certification programs include sections on;
Some doulas are specifically post partum doulas that offer light house keeping and newborn training and care. Some certification bodies offer these specialties as modules for professional development and continuing education.
Education is the preparatory toolkit
My transferable credits are academic, somatic, hospitality and arts based. Formal academic education in Psychology and Religion and counseling gives me background in:
I am educated in a style of counseling called client-centered counseling as pioneered by Carl Rogers - with a general understanding that the client is the expert on their own experience and the counselor is present as a witness to the experience, to hold the experience in loving acceptance such that the client can experience self love and acceptance.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. Carl Rogers
My somatic and physiological education started with yoga and I progressed to taking my yoga teacher training. Afterwards I discovered aerial arts and took my aerial arts teacher training. I studied through online forums and through local workshops. I learned from my students; and embraced researching what knowledge and skills I didn’t have on hand for my students.
Aerial arts benefits from the aspects of performance and team work. I learned aerial arts during my time in ensemble theatre, and jamming and performing with a live band. Most importantly aerial arts taught me that I could do what seemed impossible - so I started a guitar journal, taught myself to play and started writing songs. With this began my vocal training in the Cornelius Reid lineage of natural singing wherein I am learning the virtues of training the vocal apparatus and opening to trusting the function.
My hospitality education started with being a Pizza Hut server, and later, management training. I expanded into Bartending School which resulted in two decades of service experience in a broad variety of contexts.
My birth and pregnancy education began with my own birth and pregnancy; which continues with the flowing of Living Waters and the Deep Dive Doula.
My Doula education is entirely composed of transferable credits and experience and is also the basis for the Deep Dive Doula Certification requirements. The reality is that doulas work on a team and need back up. Births happen when they want to happen and service providers need to be able to follow through. Rather than be in two places at once, we work as a team with primary and village team members.
You, too, may have transferable credits. If you would like to offer support as a Deep Dive Doula let me know what your transferable credits are, how they fashioned you into a person able to deep dive in health and love and why you are a Deep Dive Doula. We may have a place for you in the services at Living Waters. I may ask you to be a part of a Deep Dive Doula Village; I may ask you to share your knowledge and experience in a class or workshop. This means that rather than the whole village having the same education and curriculum we complement each other by having a broader knowledge and skill base.
And as our Village grows we can offer your expertise as classes - both for parents and clients - but also for those who wish to learn and become a part of or start their own Deep Dive Doula Village.
Currently we offer these learning opportunities (that can be used as transferable credits towards Deep Dive Doula Certification) through our Community page.
Living Waters Deep Dive Doulas will have a demonstrated learning application spanning three areas:
Research showed me why doulas are invaluable. Doula presence reduces the risk of a number of interventions and increases apgar scores - and shortens labour - generally improves all outcomes and reduces the use of “clinical assistance”.
Doulas run intervention on interventions
Today we have conversations about the importance of treating all people with dignity and respect - we discuss how the dividing lines of appearance and preference do not nullify one’s innate status as worthy. Yet, we continue to treat our most vulnerable and our most precious with a disdain and dismissal that has been told to us to be utterly normal.
Research showed me the reality I had been blind to.
From my own experience of preparing for the birth of my daughter I discovered alarming information about the current ideas of best practice when it comes to the birth interventions considered normal and often recommended by the medical establishment. I discovered the lack of an evidence-based foundation for much of the current medical intervention and practice. It led to my belief in and mission to enable women to take back their birth from industry to return our children back into the loving arms of their mothers.
Loving birth is the crux of all of this. Iatrogenic harm often results in losing the 3 golden hours of bonding after birth - often from lack of endogenous oxytocin and failure to wait until after latch to deliver the placenta and cut the cord. Early diet forms the emotional futures of your child’s development and this begins with that first latch in the first golden moments of life in their own skin.
What we fear has been doctored.
Interventions begin with pregnancy screenings and spiral with recommended inductions - leading to labour time-out and the (“emergency”) C-section in more than a quarter of all hospital births.
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. Soren Kierkegaard
Many complications can be avoided; many complications are caused by continuing to uphold cultural norms that are harmful to our developing babies and our expanding bodies. Medical professionals are well meaning and truly do want the best outcomes possible for mother and baby - they have been trained by a system that capitalizes on increased interventions - that self same system that grew out of the patriarchal paradigm and witch-hunts.
Birthing our next generation in love is built on the foundation of forgiveness and redemption - freeing birth from the patriarchy and giving it to the patriarchs.
He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers
It is a matter of us offering our forgiveness so we can turn from the ways we have been led to believe are normal as we begin to create new possibilities. It is a matter of us forgiving ourselves for not questioning these norms and inviting the father’s back to the birth as birth partner.
Love is for giving.
A selection of videos that allowed me to see the reality I had been blind to:
These bath brews use herbs traditionally used for healing - no medical establishment can make any claims about the effectiveness of any of them. Any description of herbal benefits found herein is from a traditional perspective and not a medical perspective.
The claims I make are only from my experience - I can tell you that after bathing with my baby I relish in the soft suppleness of my skin - my husband muses about how his skin has never felt better and even after disavowing any medical benefits of herbs no one can argue that warm temperatures, skin to skin and time away from technology benefits bonding relationships - with yourself, your partner, your baby and as a family. {I did not use soap on my newborn, but I needed a solid soap up and rinse down - when we are done with bath time for baby I call Daddy in to receive, dry, bundle and sing to baby while Mommy scrubs up with soap and maybe even heats up the bath to pre-pregnancy temperatures.}
The Steep and Seep methodology of bath is to brew a strong brew of tea, adding herbs to boiling water and steeping for 20 minutes. Can boil for a few and steep for less if baby needs relief quickly - or can brew in bulk: make ahead and keep some in the fridge ready to be added to a warm bath.
The Seep step is next - add the brew to your bath and seep - the first 20 minutes of your seep is your skin hydrating, the next 20 minutes is the herbs infusing through your hydrated skin and much beyond that the seep reverses to a cooling bath taking it’s hydration back, but you’ll catch me in the bath reheating the water again and again.
Herbal baths to soothe mama's body and soul.
Baths are a time for bonding and love space.
Comemmorate your birth as a new mother with an onine album. Capture the special moments and keep the memorable words close to your heart. We can produce online albums for you to share the joy of this time with family and friends. Not only are our albums a great way to share photos and quotes, they are also a beautiful heirloom your child can enjoy in the future.
Order your products direct from us right here! All proceeds are payable by e-transfer to products@gantree.com
Your order will be shipped promptly with after payment.
Serving the Greater Hamilton Area locally and virtually around the world.
Spiritual care approaches growth and healing through client-centered counseling (Carl Rogers). This approach views the life event of giving birth as holding transformative power and thus inherent grief in the loss of past identity and the taking on of new identity and personhood intentionally facing of the unknown.
This is especially true for first time parents, but it does not have to be your first child to take the intentional deep dive of initiation - healing can happen at any time, in any generation. We follow the flow with the transformative power of this time regardless of how many opportunities our lineage or we ourselves have had.
As we prepare for the birth event with prenatal counseling I learn about your family, your fears, your best and your worst impulses - at the birth event I hold space for the safe passage of what you’re releasing and spread wings for the receiving of the new generation in renewed love.
Write your birth narrative ~ not your birth plan
Deep Dive Doula takes this opportunity to explore the depths of our unexamined narrative surrounding birth. Where the existing narrative for your birth may reflect societal norms married with your family and friend group expectations, it may not be forecasting the most enjoyable experience. We examine that narrative with evidence supported knowledge of actual risks and outcomes and edit our narrative to reflect the autonomy of our sovereign soul.
Art is coming face to face with yourself. Jackson Pollock
We alchemize personal and generational trauma to release it in love with artistic expression. Expressing our depths as art allows us to share truth and fully - without betraying confidences or exposing details - to be seen, accepted and loved for who we are - and to show our unborn child we prepared for them. This approach is built on the ancient practice of chöd utilizing the modern production capabilities of recording and editing. In practice this art expression can take the form of a song, a film, a poem, a dance, a website, a painting or a photography album - or any combination thereof, it can even be an art form that has yet to be invented. However it asks to come forth, we bring it forth together, clearing the way to birth in love.
Double Date Deep Dive is a couples training or birth partner training for partners who are able to be active participants in the birth. Partners of the birthing person can feel unsure of their role and unsure of what type of participation is welcome - what they may not realize is that they are participating whether or not it is in an intentional manner.
From massage and comfort holds and releases in pregnancy to prop up pillows for feeding and sleeping comfort - partners want to help and would absolutely take all the discomfort if they could. We work with you double date style to discover how you can take your birth partnership to the active level. We use a variety of approaches including acro-yoga to introduce and develop a vocabulary and understanding of physical terminology and descriptions - so when the birthing person says “headlock” or “rig” the birthing partner knows just what to do.
As partner coach I will demonstrate and teach that you too are giving birth and your preparedness in this birth will be one of the determining factors of success. Listening to your partners body and listening to your body and getting them to work together is what your future child needs. This event has made you one flesh and as one flesh your spirit and your soul is an integral part of the birth process. There will be more required of you than holding a hand and sitting by the bedside, but this is a glorious opportunity to experience the miracle of life with your partner. You will need to be a repository of the techniques and exercises that the two of you have learned together - when your partner needs your strength or your memory or your direction - I will teach you how to supply it fearlessly and seamlessly.
And the experience will last a lifetime for the both of you.
Rates are drifting and subject to individual considerations. We offer a variety of options that allow you to secure our services with dignity including our pay it forward purchasing where friends, family and strangers can pitch in and pledge to your birth support package.
Additional services, including photograghy, videography and celebration events, can be hosted at our home studio and community space in a National Historic Site in downtown Hamilton, Ontario.
Intentional parenting is about relationships between those who intentionally accept their sovereignty of soul and grant it freely to others. This puts relationships as foremost as we gather to share experiences, support and be supported on our journey.
It takes a village
Baby and Mama clothing exchange program: pick up clothing sizes as needed and bring in used clothing to pass it on. From prenatal bump accommodating garb to easy access breasts and fits for six pounders, this community offers the dignity to dress in that which will only be worn once or twice.
Take-a-penny leave-a-penny item exchange to fulfill our communities needs - toys, tummy time mats cradles, play gyms, play yards, playpens, bouncers, rockers, carriers and car seats.