WAVE: Returning Home
*Ten years ago, I thought my work in birth was over. Today, I’m holding the dissertation that brought me back to it.*
At 42, I was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer.
At the time, I was fully immersed in the world of birth and parenting — working as a doula, midwife assistant, childbirth and infant massage educator, early childhood specialist, parenting author, and founder of three bilingual immersion schools. Most important of all, I was a mother to these four beautiful children and wife to the love of my life.
My cancer was discovered after a nearly fatal hemorrhage that occurred while I was driving home from an exceptionally long and complicated homebirth. I spent a week in intensive care, receiving transfusions and fighting for my life. The trauma that followed reached far beyond the diagnosis itself and left me unable to continue the work that had defined so much of who I was — until now.
Today, I am finding my way back to the birth and parenting world, reclaiming my space and rediscovering what it means to come HOME — in body, mind, and soul.
For those who have been following my journey, you know that my work has always centered on women’s stories — birth, transition, identity, and the many ways we learn to return to ourselves.
I’m currently writing my dissertation on maternal mood disorders and developing a tool called WAVE — a framework inspired by the natural rhythm of emotional processing and regulation. It’s still conceptual, but I believe it holds real potential to support women navigating the postpartum period, helping them feel safe and grounded after one of life’s most powerful transformations.
And in a bit of cosmic symmetry, I’ll be submitting that dissertation on the very same date — exactly ten years to the day — that I was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer.
A Decade of Healing
Ten years ago this month, cancer took me out of the birth world and into the hardest chapter of my life.
The loss of my career felt like another kind of illness — a hollowing I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover from.
But I did.
Earlier this year, I sailed to see the puffins off the coast of Scotland — those tiny, determined birds who travel hundreds of miles across the open sea, only to return to the very same cliffs they called home the season before. The trip was a generous opportunity presented to me by Helen Walker, who may never know just how much it meant to me.
Aboard Zuza, I was joined by Malgorzata Scheidle (Gosia) — an extraordinary chef who nourished my body and soul throughout our days at sea. She stood beside me as tears streamed down my face the first time I saw the puffins. Their resilience, their certainty in where they belonged — it was as if they were showing me a truth I had forgotten.
We are meant to find our way back, too.
The puffins, May 2025.
A Return to My Calling
And today, with a steady body and a full heart, I can say with certainty: I’ve found my way back to my calling.
After a decade of healing body, mind, and soul, I return to this work renewed. My understanding of what it means to hold space has deepened. I come back with greater compassion, clearer boundaries, and a steadier devotion to the healing potential of connection.
As I near the completion of my MSc in Integrative Therapy, I’ve decided to continue on and begin applying to PhD programs. My love of learning, research, and writing keeps leading me forward.
I don’t yet know exactly where this path will lead — whether into research, teaching, or new ways of holding space — but I know it will continue to center on women, healing, and connection. I know it will always include writing, sailing, gathering women in retreat, meaningful CONNECT sessions, and the beauty of poetry and art — these are the threads I can’t imagine living without.
Leigh on the bow of Zuza in Scotland.
Honoring the Teachers
I’ve been shaped by extraordinary teachers across two continents — Carol Nelson, Deborah Flowers, Pamela Hunt, Joanne Santana, Ina May Gaskin, Michel Odent, Robbie Davis-Floyd, Suzanne Reese, Vimala McClure, Gerri Ryan, Barbara Harper, Rob Biter, Debbie Schneider, Constance Conn, Brad Bootstaylor, Karen Strange, and so many others who have profoundly influenced my understanding of healing, birth, and connection.
Not many in this field have had the privilege of learning directly from such pioneers, and I hold that gift with deep gratitude.
It feels like time to stand in what I know — to trust the wisdom that has gathered over decades and to keep sharing it in ways that serve the wellbeing of generations to come.
Movement and Return
This chapter feels like both a return and a beginning.
WAVE is still taking form, but it carries the heartbeat of everything I’ve learned along the way.
Like the puffins, I too have spent years carried by unpredictable tides, finding my strength in unfamiliar waters.
Now, as I stand at this threshold, I see how every wave — of loss, learning, and renewal — has led me home.
WAVE was born from that rhythm, from the steady pull between what was and what is becoming.
It reminds me that healing, like the sea, is both movement and return.
