Who is Whole Hearts?
Jeanne Anderson, SM(NCM), CD(CBI), CBE

Married in 1973 to my wonderful husband, John, we were blessed with four beautiful children.  My birthing journey began with my first pregnancy in '75, when my daughter, Molly, was born.  The twin miracles of pregnancy and birth changed my life in a profound way;  afterward I became certified as a Bradley Birth instructor in 1977 and began teaching my first class while pregnant with my oldest son, Ken.

I was unable to find a hospital based caregiver who would allow me to have the type of family-centered unmedicated birth I was seeking, so Ken was born at home.  Because I had experienced homebirth myself, friends and students who were planning homebirths began asking me to come help them with their births-- there were no official doulas at the time, but that is the role I played.  Soon people also began asking me to help them and their partners when they birthed at hospitals also, so I was functioning as a doula long before I became certified as one.  My third child, Charley, attended his first birth when he was only a couple months old,  too young for a nursing momma like me to leave behind when I went to help the friend of a friend.

While pregnant with my youngest, Maggy, I was asked to serve on the steering committee that founded what is now known as the Conejo Valley Women's Resource Center, seeking to help women who find themselves in a difficult pregnancy due to financial difficulties, social problems, or any number of reasons.  When the center opened in '84, I completed the counselor's training and volunteered for a while in that capacity.  However, my first love always has been birth, I soon began teaching Natural Childbirth Classes for the center's clients.

During this same time, I also had begun homeschooling my four children.  Called from birth for a while, I helped found a large homeschooling network in the Conejo, where I served as the principal of an Independent Study Program of over 100 families until I suffered a devastating car accident in '91.  After my recovery, I worked for a while as a program coordinator for foreign exchange students, which was great fun when my kids were all teens.  However, I never could bring myself to leave birth completely, occasionally I would still get a call from someone who wanted private childbirth classes or some kind of help with their birth.

Then, in 2004, on my second trip to Moscow, Russia, a friend there was expecting her first baby and asked me to help her with some information.  Very little information regarding birth is told to women in today's Russia, Sveta was so excited about the help I gave her she was soon arranging for me to teach her friends from the university.  I also was asked to help a mom in Pereslavl-Zelleski, and after meeting with the head of the maternity department there, I was teaching Natural Childbirth classes to the doctors at the local clinic.  I have made several trips back to Russia teaching, and am currently attempting to help establish a Family Resource Center in Moscow to help meet the need not only for birthing education and reform, but to help ameliorate some of Russia's other social ills such as alcoholism, spousal & child abuse, and the rapidly rising numbers of HIV/AIDS cases through education and compassion.

Feeling it was wrong of me to be teaching overseas when I was no longer teaching at home, I began offering small, intimate Natural Childbirth Classes again, and went through the certification process to become a Labor/Birth Doula through Childbirth International.  In January of 2008, I enrolled in the National College of Midwifery, pursuing a dream to be a midwife I have had for many years.

I have found it a great blessing and joy to be intimately involved again in the wonder that is birthing, and feel it a privilege to be a part of new life entering the world.

~~~Jeanne Anderson