Mandolin Restivo-Walsh, SBD

Certified Birth & Bereavement Doula® serving Stafford County and surrounding, Virginia

SBD Doulas® are accessible to you through our open group or through our CONNECT app.

As a professor of Women’s Studies and crisis counselor I bring to my work the ability to research, teach, and empower. My academic background allows me to stay current in the ever-changing field of maternal health. My counseling skills provide me with the tools to stay present with each mother, couple, and family as they navigate the experience of birth in any trimester, with any outcome.

As a certified rape and domestic violence crisis counselor I have seen first-hand how lack of access to information and choices about one’s body dehumanizes and dis-empowers. I bring to my birth work a passion for ensuring that families have access to the information and support they need to make informed choices. I believe that by purposefully approaching birth and preganncy as a prepared couple, women and their partners can experience empowerment, joy, and fulfillment.

I provide doula services as well as coordinate Connected Birth’s childbirth education programs and Moms’ groups. I am a certified StillBirthDay Birth and Bereavement Doula®, a certified Childbirth Educator, and Rebozo certified.

For more information about Connected Birth’s Moms’ groups, including a support group for early pregnancy loss, click here.

Discover what the SBD credentialed doula has achieved.

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BIRTH & BEREAVEMENT QUOTES

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She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.

— Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

— C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I am strong.

— January, founder of Birth Without Fear

When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she’s gone, forever—there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.

— John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite.

— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

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BECOME A DOULA!

Enroll now in the Birth & Bereavement Doula® program!

We onboard enrolled students into the program by email invitation.

After tuition, you can email heidi.faith@stillbirthday.com directly to expedite this step. Alternatively, if you prefer fb communications, you can join us in Admissions.