I am Cathy Gomez (she/her), RN, CLEC, Yoga 200 with prenatal and restorative certifications, Birth Doula CD(DONA), MBCP CBE, Certified BRM pro®, Body Ready Birth® teacher, and Reiki Master — known to my clients as “Doula Cat”.

Truly my family is what comes first and the foundation to all that I love in my life so this is where I start “About Me.” My family is the heart of me, the wind in my sails and my best life teacher(s). My husband and I have raised three incredibly kind and loving children, now grown, thriving in their own unique ways and continuing to bring joy and adventure into our lives. From game night, to brewing beer, to having a cook off or just hanging out for the weekend keeps our lives connected and full. Today, I live with my husband, my dog and two cats in Folsom, CA. When I am not attending births or teaching classes, I love being in nature, or sharing tea with a close friend, or just thinking of my next creative stained-glass project. I love my family, and I love to spread that love to other growing families.

I have always loved to serve, support and advocate for families. First as a pediatric nurse and volunteering with various family-based programs, and now as a birth professional in my local community. Reflecting on my journey, I realize that my experiences in life have led me to serve in a way I am most passionate — providing comprehensive and compassionate birth doula and lactation support along with prenatal yoga, and Reiki. I have attended births in a variety of settings (hospitals, birth centers and at home). I have supported birthing families through medicated and unmedicated births. I have been fortunate to join families during cesarean births, surrogate births, inductions, and VBAC births as well. I have learned from and continue to be inspired by every family I work with as a doula. I am very excited to share that through the last several years I have been fortunate enough to work with and learn from an amazing doula, Shalin Butterworth. We learned that we see doula support through the same compassionate lens and now we offer collaborative doula support together. Collaborative support offers a village of support, is innovative and an incredible opportunity that is the wave of the future. This is my practice today, but I think it is important to know how I became a doula and where my doula path started.

My interest in becoming a birth doula started during my yoga teacher training while I lived in New Jersey. My mentor in my yoga teacher training was pregnant and after having her baby shared that she had a challenging first birth experience. As a way to help change her story for her next birth and for other birthing families, we both decided to explore becoming birth doulas. From there, I went through my birth doula training which then expanded into prenatal and restorative yoga training while also growing an interest in Reiki energy healing. And then I had the honor of being present at two of my yoga teachers’ births, and then another dear friend’s birth who was willing to embrace me as a brand-new doula. These initial birth experiences, who today I still am in contact with, transformed me, and I was able to experience how sacred the birthing process is and what a blessing it is to be present at a birth. I was able to witness how the mind played a powerful role in birth, how the breath could become the bridge between the mind and body, and how all three could help enhance a baby’s journey into the world.

I ventured into my next training, Mindful Based Childbirth and Parenting (MBCP) with Nancy Bardacke, CNM, to become a childbirth educator. This incredible life experience was deeply transformative for me as a human being, a parent and a doula supporting birthing families. I learned the practice of cultivating mindfulness in any season of life can have such a positive impact on mental and physical well-being and how we can flow with the challenges we can face along the way. For me as one example, I learned to take one move at a time as I have moved across the country four times from the west to the east coast and back again. I have learned calm and ease can promote more calm and ease while cultivating a response instead of a reaction. This means taking each surge one at a time noticing the pause in between until your baby is skin to skin with you…invaluable mindfulness practice.

While learning more about the mental and emotional preparation for birth, I realized I needed more in-depth knowledge on how to prepare the body for birth beyond Spinning Babies or what I was taught as a nurse. I knew I needed to go deeper into the why and how to proactively prepare the body in pregnancy and carry this level of understanding into labor that was more responsive and less reactive. I jumped into the first cohort of Body Ready Method® and have been a part of this program as a teaching assistant since first starting it. It is also aligned with the importance of mental and emotional preparation to protect labor flow while also understanding the why, when and how to promote balance and movement in pregnancy, birth, and postpartum recovery. This program invites each of us to change the paradigm of birth and honors the intuitive knowing of a physiological birth experience. I took the next step in this incredible training, and I have also completed the first cohort training to be a certified Body Ready Birth® teacher which is geared to teach groups of expectant families and promotes community support. I am now a Body Ready Birth® Teaching Assistant and will be helping with the next cohort of this training.

One of the most heartfelt experiences that can come with being a birth worker is that birth can be “predictably unpredictable.” A traumatic birth experience calls for tender follow-up support with compassionate efforts to promote healing and resilience. I am also trained in birth trauma prevention and in providing respectful, culturally sensitive care for LGBTQ+ families. These experiences have expanded my knowledge and help me offer comprehensive, trauma-informed, culturally sensitive support to each unique birthing person/family and their baby(s). Being a part of trauma prevention and connected to resources that help those that have had traumatic birth experiences, I believe is an essential part of a doula’s practice and a priority for me.

My BRM teacher and a pioneer in helping to change the paradigm of birth, Lindsay McCoy, summarizes my hopes for all birth when she shares, “Peace on Earth begins with birth.” Another amazing and wise teacher from Mindful Birthing, Nancy Bardacke, shares, “The world is forever changed every time a baby is born.” I carry these in my heart, and I am here to support you with Tender Loving Care honoring your own inner birth wisdom throughout the journey of pregnancy, birth and early postpartum. I look forward to meeting you and whoever you choose to support you!