Ashley (they / she) is a somatic practitioner, zine maker, community educator, and full spectrum doula in Madison, WI.
Ashley initially came to reproductive care work in 2014 through her training in the Fertility Awareness Method and has taught hundreds of individuals how to track their ovulation and better understand their fertility, their menstrual cycles, and their wise bodies. This work naturally led her to learn more about pregnancy and it’s many different outcomes and in 2018 she trained as an abortion doula and a birth doula. Since then she's supported all different types of pregnancies and all different types of families: homebirth, hospital birth, high risk pregnancies, planned & unplanned cesareans, trans & non-binary individuals, queer families, pregnancy loss (miscarriage, abortion, stillbirth) and many other types of families and situations.
Her work as a doula & fertility educator also sparked curiosity about other systems in the body—specifically the nervous system. In 2021 she trained as a TRE provider (which stands for tension / trauma release exercises) and is also studying to become a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. She's particularly interested in working with people who have experienced birth trauma, fertility trauma, or other medical trauma and are looking for ways to heal from those experiences, and people who are deeply curious about learning how to read their body. She believes that our bodies have so much information to give us—sometimes we just need help knowing where to look or learning how to listen.
In addition to birth work & trauma work, Ashley also delights in writing and has made dozens of zines (pronounced ”zeens”)—handmade, self published booklets on all kinds of different body literacy topics. She is an educator at heart and loves to make complicated topics easily digestible & fun for her students and clients.
Ashley's work is gender inclusive & trauma-informed—and in addition to these frameworks she also brings humor, compassion, and a non-judgmental vibe into the work she does. When she's not writing a zine, attending a birth, or teaching TRE Ashley enjoy sitting at coffee shops, eating the most delish food Madison has to offer, various forms of fiber arts (knitting, embroidery, hopefully soon learning how to quilt), sleeping late, and just generally being cozy.
“Being with someone as they realize, remember their own wholeness—that is the work of the healer and the doula.” Adrienne Maree Brown