How it all began…
Both Michelle and Steph were working part-time as birth doulas when we were introduced to each other in 2019 through a mutual friend, Candice, who hired us as contract doulas on her team. We had never met each other before when we showed up to a team photoshoot day. It wasn’t long before we realized we were both the same kind of crazy and weird (see photo below). After a short time of working together and talking, it became really clear we had the same philosophies around life and birth, around how we show up as birthworkers and parents, and that we kind of had this shared vision of what we wanted for our futures in this work. Without even really meaning to, we started dreaming up and building Wildflower.
Michelle (left) and Steph (centre) and three other doulas confused about who these weirdos are
At some point it became clear that we wanted to pour all of energy into building our own business together as a partnership and it was then that Wildflower Birth Collective was born! We hummed and hawed about different names for our business, thinking we might just keep Michelle’s original business name which was Sycamore Doula Services, but we landed on Wildflower. It felt like a nice symbol of birth — the balance of the natural beauty and wildness of it all (and well, we’re a bit wild sometimes too). The Collective piece felt important because we always envisioned having a collective of different people who work in supporting birthing and postpartum families from all different backgrounds and who offer all different kinds of things. This is part of the long-term vision we have for WFBC.
It took us almost a year to build and launch our business — the website, the processes on the back end, the social media, integrating both of our families and calendars to be able to schedule our lives together, and most importantly, the information and education we would share with clients. If you’re following the timeline, that means yep, we started a business in the early months of Covid. What a time it was. We also both took on board member roles with the Doula Services Association. We really hit the ground running as a team!
Fast forward almost 4 years and WFBC now has three more amazing women who have joined our team, who work in the pregnancy, birth and postpartum support realms in different ways. We have also expanded our offerings beyond full-spectrum doula support, to include placenta encapsulation and other placenta services, birth pool and TENS rentals, as well as prenatal education with My Powerful Birth.
We can’t wait to see what the next 4 years will bring…
