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NICOLE M. BAILEYNikki’s passion for families comes naturally. As the oldest of a large clan, Nikki is a natural nurturer. This spark was ignited by her own journey to motherhood and working in maternal health. Committed to reducing the disparities in postpartum fatalities for women of color, Nikki is training to become a postpartum doula and lactation consultant. By day Nikki is a skilled fundraising professional, with experience developing, implementing and executing organizations’ fundraising efforts and championing organizations in the community. She has a diverse background, including fundraising and public relations at several organizations including the National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Association of Women’s Healthcare, Obstetrics, and Neonatal Nursing (AWHONN), and the American Nurses Foundations.
Nikki's biggest strengths are her resourcefulness, relationship management, and resilience. She thrives on overcoming challenges, particularly those that unlock the potential for an equitable and sustainable world. Nikki holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Relations and Community Development from Howard University and an M.S.A. in Organizational Management from Trinity University in Washington, DC. She hails from the Hampton Roads and currently resides in the Washington, DC metro area with her two sons, Hollis, 12 and Ellington, 10. |
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DIANNE BEARINGERDianne Bearinger has spent her career working with young children and their parents. She is an experienced Waldorf Early Childhood Educator who taught the Charlottesville Waldorf School preschool class for a decade before her own children were born. At that time, she focused Intensively on parent education.
She successfully homeschooled her children (now ages 21 and 24) and helped for a local Waldorf Inspired Homeschool group so that local families could educate their kids at home, together. After homeschool her son and daughter attended tandem Friends School and Dianne served on the Board of Trustees there. She currently works as a reading (Wilson Reading Program) and math tutor for students in grade K though 6th. For the past 15 years Dianne has served as a DONA Certified postpartum doula, supporting local families through the transition of welcoming a new baby into their home. She works with Month 10 and Nearby Baby. With her colleague Cynthia Jordan Fisher, Dianne wrote and teaches postpartum doula training classes. She is also the Parent Child Teacher at the Charlottesville Waldorf School and teaches classes for women. For more information visit: motherworkscville.com |
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LISA BROWNMeet Lisa. As an altruist and natural caregiver, Lisa has a passion for the needs of others. She has a special interest in the well-being of expectant mothers and newborns. In particular, she feels called to action to be a part of interrupting the staggering outcomes of health risk, life loss and trauma during childbirth that are disportionately affecting women of color. This call led her to become a trained birth and postpartum doula. Lisa is committed to building trusting relationships to bear witness to new life and new beginnings and believes all families deserve to be supported during the postpartum period.
Lisa spent 25 years as a professional in the Human Resources and Workforce Development field, civically serving on Charlottesville area workforce, disability service and social service boards. She has worked in multiple business sectors, corporate and nonprofit. As a volunteer, she worked in the areas of domestic violence as a Volunteer Coordinator for Shelter for Help in Emergency. She is a Partner in Policymaking, disability rights advocate. Lisa supports Nearby Baby as an Advisory Board member. Lisa is an active birth doula with Birth Sisters and recently completed the Nearby Baby training for postpartum doulas to be able to offer future direct doula services for Nearby Baby. Lisa is a proud mother of three amazing humans, who have taught her the joy and patience of motherhood. |
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BERNADETTE CONNORBernadette joined Nearby Baby in the summer of 2019. Bernadette's path to Nearby Baby includes stops in Education, Coaching, and Nursing. While pregnant, and especially after becoming a mother, Bernadette felt drawn to improving birth and postpartum care for all families. She is passionate about nurturing a positive postpartum experience. As a family does the difficult physical and emotion work of welcoming a new member, their support system can make all the difference. Bernadette lives in Charlottesville with her family and is most happy outside exploring with her two children.
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SANDRA CRAWFORDSandra has had a deeply rooted passion for helping others since she was a small child, and this passion to serve others has led her to work in many different fields of care throughout the years. With a love of birth and a desire to support families, Sandra began work as a birth and postpartum doula in 2015. She recently completed the Nearby Baby training for postpartum doulas and began serving families with newborns through Nearby Baby. As a doula, it is her goal to provide families with the support, information and resources that allow them to enter confidently into parenthood.
Sandra currently lives with her husband and three young daughters on a farm in the Charlottesville area. She loves hiking and spending time outdoors with her family. |
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MIMI HUNTA native of Charlottesville, Mimi first worked with new mothers as a social worker counseling pregnant and parenting teenagers in downtown Boston. She continued to work with children and families, for over 25 years, as a clinical social worker, mostly in school settings. After raising her two children in the Boston area, she returned to Charlottesville in 2015 to be closer to her family. Mimi completed Nearby Baby doula training in 2018 and has been a part Nearby Baby since its inception. She enjoys supporting moms and their partners as they come into their own as parents and as a new family is created. In her free time, Mimi enjoys gardening, yoga, meditation, volunteering and time with friends and family; especially outdoors.
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CYNTHIA JORDAN FISHERCynthia began training in maternal child health through observing births and newborns in Rome, Italy in 1983. After giving birth to her first child in 1986, Cynthia supported mothers from various countries in the Pacific Rim in their homes as a Child Development Specialist in Hawaii, teaching newborn care, feeding, reading baby's cues and assessing and strengthening the mother baby bond.
Cynthia has been working with families in Charlottesville since 1995 where she began teaching parent child classes for parents with newborns - age 3 through her program Babies by the Blue Ridge. While working as a DONA certified postpartum doula with Month10 Doulas over the past 10 years she especially enjoys helping mothers gain insights into their newborn from a Montessori perspective. Cynthia also helps prepare homes to encompass a newborn or infant's needs. Cynthia has been working to develop Nearby Baby for the past two years and training women interested in being postpartum doulas. She has two daughters and five grandchildren. (Fortunately for her they are all locals!) |
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ALISSA MCKOWNAlissa arrived in Charlottesville to attend the University of Virginia via Colorado, Mexico, and Botswana, and has made a home here ever since. Alissa has her AMI Montessori Assistants to Infancy certificate (conception to three) and has been working in and leading a toddler classroom and Parent-Infant classes for the past 10 years. She is passionate about supporting new parents, infants, and toddlers. She feels that a peaceful beginning, grounded in support and respect, can lead to a more peaceful world in the future.
Alissa spent many of the 250 hours of observations required for Montessori training with infants, and she felt fortunate to have the opportunity to observe Cynthia in her role as a Doula. This sparked an interest in this type of work for Alissa and she eagerly took on the training to become a postpartum doula with Nearby Baby. Alissa also has A.R.T. childbirth preparation training, has extensive training in mindfulness, and lots of first hand parenting knowledge. Alissa is a mother of two, and passionate about nature and travel. She and her family enjoy hiking, camping, adventures and museums. |
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STACEY MCLAUGHLINStacey has 20 years in the healthcare field working in a variety of settings carrying out numerous roles over the years. She has realized that she prefers working in the role of nurse. She has provided healthcare to many patient populations. Stacey found most joy while working as a nurse in home health with families who have newborns, infants, toddlers, and teenagers with skilled nursing needs.
Stacey was once a client of NearBy Baby. Now, she looks forward to assisting NearBy Baby with recruiting and training more postpartum doulas. She is a proud mother of one beautiful daughter, who is now 9 months. Stacey enjoys learning the new role of mother, spending time with family, traveling, and cooking. |
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ZAKIAH PIERREMeet Zakiah. Zakiah loves people. Specifically she loves serving others. It brings her great joy. This began when she was very young, volunteering as a Girl Scout and carried into a career in Chemical Engineering. As an engineer she spent years quality testing consumer products you buy off the shelf to ensure both effectiveness and safety. She eventually transitioned to the non profit space to help groom high school students to pursue STEM in college. Today, when she isn’t working to develop a world class student experience for students at the UVA Darden School of Business as a Student Affairs director, you can find her immersed in work serving the Charlottesville community. Since welcoming two children in Charlottesville, she has developed a new respect for moms, the motherhood journey and the need for better and more accessible resources throughout the perinatal period.
Zakiah supports Nearby Baby as an Advisory Board member. She has been a valuable support with initial strategic planning for NBB especially in the area of program design. Zakiah is a trained birth doula with the Birth Sisters and is currently taking the NBB training for postpartum doulas to be able to offer future direct doula services and case management support of doulas for Nearby Baby. Zakiah resides in the City of Charlottesville with her husband, two toddlers and 2 cats. |
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ELAINE QUICKA helping hand and voice that believes we can find our way through any change or challenge, Elaine is thrilled to be working with Nearby Baby supporting mothers and families as they welcome a new child at home. Elaine is dedicated to supporting people in transitions, healing, and growth throughout life, particularly women.
She has supported many friends and family with their young children and home life over the years and completed post-partum doula training with Cynthia Fisher and Dianne Bearinger in spring 2018. In 2019, she began the Birth-to-Three program at Sophia's Hearth in Keene, NH based on the Waldorf approach to education and the work of Dr. Emmi Pikler, and is in her second year of teaching in the Early Childhood Department at the Charlottesville Waldorf School. Elaine has also pursued clinical herbal training and practice since 2009 and is moving deeper into the intersection of Biodynamic Agriculture, social justice, and the Sacred Feminine. She currently lives in Gordonsville, VA. |
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ERIN ROSE JONESErin is passionate about supporting families as they welcome their new babies into the world. She believes that all families deserve to have non-judgmental, knowledgeable, caring, and compassionate support during this time and has been working to try to make this type of support available to low-income families in rural areas since 2015. She was so excited to find out about Nearby Baby in winter 2018, took the training in June 2018 and has been working with the organization as a postpartum doula and a member of the advisory board ever since. Erin speaks Spanish and her husband is from Mexico so her two-fold goal is to help Nearby Baby as it grows to offer postpartum doula services both to Spanish-speaking families and to families living in the rural counties surrounding Charlottesville.
Erin has been interested in working with mothers and babies for over a decade and has attended several birth and postpartum doula and other complementary trainings both in person and online since 2011. She has five young children of her own - including a set of twins - and is homeschooling them. She and her children volunteer locally with Feed My Sheep - an emergency food pantry whose goal is to ensure that no one goes hungry within a 15 mile radius of their hometown of Gordonsville. |
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SIMONE SIBLEY-MCBRIDEA native of Hampton Roads, Virginia, Simone Sibley-McBride relocated to Charlottesville in 2019 by way of Nashville, Tennessee. An experienced public health professional with a demonstrated history of working within government agencies and nonprofit management, Simone is passionate about improving health disparities and the quality of life among disadvantaged and vulnerable communities. With a professional background in both mental and public health, her time at the Nashville Public Health Department was spent developing workshops and conducting trainings for universities, businesses, organizations and churches around suicide prevention, self-care, and the impacts of toxic stress, childhood trauma, health equity and historical trauma on brain development. Since arriving in Charlottesville, Simone has led operations for Common Grounds Healing Arts, a local nonprofit creating affordable access to alternative healing. A graduate of Spelman College, she is now pursuing her master of public health (MPH) from the University of Virginia with a focus in Health Policy, Law & Ethics. Understanding the incredible power of a supportive community, Simone is honored to support the mission of Nearby Baby as she and her husband await the arrival of their first little one in October 2020.
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CECELIA LUCASCecelia Lucas’s love for babies has been around for as long as she can remember, and she always knew that they would be a part of her everyday life. Cece has continuously sought a way to help/support mothers and be hands-on with sweet babies, and she has found precisely that in postpartum doula work. Cece is incredibly excited to have the opportunity to connect with families in such a special way and share in all the joy of bringing home a new baby.
Cecelia is new to Charlottesville, originally a California native where she got her Bachelor of Science, Child Development from California State University – Dominguez Hills. Other than snuggling babies, her loves are playing volleyball and hanging out with her nephew. |
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LAUREN UHERAs a certified postpartum doula and lactation consultant in training, Lauren is passionate about making postpartum support more accessible to low-income families in rural areas around central Virginia. She believes that welcoming a new baby into a family unit should be an unhurried time of rest, healing, bonding, and that every family should have access to the support that allows them to make the most of those early days.
Lauren lives on an aspiring homestead in southwestern Albemarle County with her husband, three children, and an array of animals. She enjoys spending time outdoors, reading, baking, and working on creative endeavors. |
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MEGAN RENFROMegan Renfro completed training with Nearby Baby in 2019. She is a homebirthing, homeschooling mom of one. Also trained as an end-of-life doula, she is interested in holding space through major transitions throughout the lifecycle, offering both practical and spiritually nourishing companionship. She honors the innately wise family-making practices of all parents. With a strong belief in catalyzing community-centered power, she focuses on finding a place for each family member to supportively connect into the newly blossoming family structure. Megan is also a dedicated Zen Buddhist with a background in spiritual care, grief support, and authentic communication.
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GRACIE GAMBINOGracie Gambino is a Charlottesville native who grew up blissfully surrounded by babies. Her work as a high school Spanish teacher plus her love for travelling has sparked her interest in the many ways that language and culture shape our experiences of birth and parenting. Gracie is also a DONA certified birth doula and fully believes that "peace on earth begins with birth." She delights in helping families transition to life with their newest little members in a peaceful, joyful and supported way.
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LINDALinda learned of Nearby Baby in early 2020 when COVID was affecting her employment at UVA as a registered nurse in the outpatient OB clinic. She has been a registered nurse for 39 years, working in varied fields: geriatrics, and cardiology, until 2016. She lived in Harrisonburg, VA and Edinburg, VA since the late 1980s. She returned for her Master's in Nursing and graduated in 2016. Her current interest is in women's health and maternity. From her experience working in the OB clinic for 4 years, she has noticed there seems to be much more support for pregnant women than for the one who has recently brought a new life into the world, and found that her own world was rocked. She took postpartum doula training in 2020 and began working in 2021 after restrictions from COVID were eased. While in the role of postpartum doula, she will not offer medical advice, she does have knowledge of the implications of birth on a woman's health, both physically and emotionally. Motherhood is a sacred journey. Caring for mother's in the transition time of adapting to an enlarging family is work that is both fulfilling and humbling. While she does not have children of her own, she acknowledges parenthood is some of the most challenging work, yet with a vastly significant impact on all family members. Go parents!
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