Courtney Jarecki, director of Full Moon’s Daughter, has been at this all her life, just in different forms. Her passion for natural birth began by watching bad birth television shows in the 1990’s and crying at the disrespect shown to mother and baby in hospitals. She placed her interest in natural birth aside as she graduated from Penn State in 1999 and moved to Wisconsin with Dave, her future husband, to work in Landscape Design.
From the Midwest, Courtney, Dave, their puppets and plants followed Portlandia’s calling and arrived in the great Northwest in 2002. For the next few years Courtney worked in management and project management for medium to large corporations, all the while searching for her true calling in life. She continued studying midwifery and natural childbirth when not working on spreadsheets and annual reports.
After a health crisis that changed her life forever (and only in positive ways) she re-discovered midwifery. Since 2007 Courtney has been deeply involved in Portland’s natural birth movement. She received her Labor Doula training through Birthingway College of Midwifery while her postpartum doula training is with Alma Midwifery Service. Courtney also offers doula and childbirth education services offered through Nurture, a center for growing families. She also attends Ancient Art Midwifery Institute and plans on graduating in 2012.
Courtney maintains a flexible schedule that allows her to fully devote her time to each client’s birth and family needs. To ensure a mom will never be without a doula, she is involved in an extensive doula network that offers backup and additional care.
Outside of birth, Courtney enjoys spending time with her amazingly supportive poet-husband Dave, their Ridgeback Satchel (who owns Moe’s Meats, a raw pet food company) and her mystery hound Maji. Together, the family likes to hike, sit in the sunshine, eat good food and come up with ideas for movies.
