About Yana

Certified Doula, Post-partum Doula


My first child was born 12 years ago and his birth changed my life in a very abrupt and profound way. After that experience, I realized that I either had to make different choices to birth again or I couldn't have more children because it was too traumatizing for all of us: my baby, my husband and I. For quite a while I dealt with a rhetorical question within me "Why had nobody told me?" I needed help, advice and support but I wasn't even aware of that. I thought that after a perfectly healthy pregnancy it was expected to have an exhausting and complicated birth followed by a difficult and painful recovery. At least I am alive and my baby is healthy, I thought. I survived and I had no intention to face it ever again. And that's how my quest for knowledge had begun.

Fauve MacKenzie

Our following three births unfolded in an entirely different way. As parents we felt empowered rather than defeated. Despite our previous experience and intense preparation, we still had a hard time adjusting to the life with a newborn baby. It's obvious to me now everything happens for a reason. My very last baby totally surprised me with following light signs of postpartum depression…. Or rather, some melancholic mood tendencies. That was a point when I started to think differently: if I could split myself in half, one part would know exactly how the other is feeling, it would know how to take care of the other because the other part just didn't have enough strength, it was drained both physically and emotionally. I made a promise to become someone who one day can support a woman in the same kind of situation. I decided to become a birth and postpartum doula and to deepen my understanding of the birth process and the recovery that comes with it.

When I attended the Wise Woman Way of Birth doula training and learned about the realities of birthing in BC, medical routine procedures, options and rights of pregnant women in Canada and BC, I learned about my rights and options that I just had no idea about. That course brought back so many memories of my first birth including the forgotten "why has nobody told me?" but now I know why. I needed that experience because it changed my life in a meaningful way but also gave me the chance to find my great interest and deep passion. My birth experiences have made me into who I am today. I have a great appreciation and respect towards mothers and I am beyond happy to pass what I have learned in my training and my personal experience to new families.. I believe that every woman deserves to know all she is supposed to know about her nature, her birth, her body, her options, her potential... and I am grateful to the new families trusting me to support them in their journeys.

Check out our 10 tips for better births and get started on your path to a better birth. Contact me for a free consultation – I have lots to share with you.

Serving: North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Burnaby, Vancouver, New Westminster, Port Moody, and Coquitlam.