I’m Kestrel. I’m a mother and maternal health advocate on the Oregon coast…

I wrote the Build Your Nest postpartum planning workbook and am created the Postpartum Navigator training because I believe that all families should have the information they need to make a postpartum plan that is right for them.

More than anything it is my role as a mother and my role as a community member that has given me with the lived knowing of the importance of the postpartum time. Our stories of struggle and triumph have nourished my sense of mission. 

I am now having these conversations with mothers and professionals around the world. Regardless of culture and health care system, we are seeing many of the same struggles and coming to the same conclusions about what is needed.

Currently, I live with my family on two acres on the Oregon Coast where I am implementing a Postpartum Navigator Pilot Project in collaboration with our local perinatal health professionals and with the support and fiscal sponsorship of Baby Blues Connection, a perinatal mental health nonprofit based in Portland, Oregon. I am also a La Leche League leader and am passionate about promoting lactation education among professionals.

Looking Back

I attended my first birth in 1996 and went on to do a doula training in 1997 and did another doula training in 2017. In college I majored in dance and minored in ethnobotany and then went on to work as a massage therapist. I gave birth to my son in 2007 and daughter in 2011.

It wasn’t until I had my own children that I realized how important the postpartum time is. After my son was born, I did not give myself maternity leave from our family business of making handmade paper lights (HiiH Lights). Within 10 days of giving birth, I was on a construction site, looking at the ceiling where one of our custom lights would be installed. When my son was 4 weeks old, I was helping create a community performance project and was up late writing press releases. It was too much. I had the idea that jumping back into everything quickly, was natural and showed how well I had adjusted to motherhood. I paid for it hard. Those first weeks and months were so much harder than giving birth.

Nearly four years later, I gave birth to our daughter. This time, I planned. I cleared my plate. I called in help. And it was such a sweet, sweet time.

These experiences set me on a mission to help other families have more rest and support.