About Brave Journey

Brave Journey empowers you to navigate your birth journey with confidence through judgement-free, intentional childbirth education. Courses & coaching provide the knowledge and tools you need to make informed decisions and ensure your unique needs are met. Gain clarity and confidence as you prepare for birth, knowing your options and rights in today's medical landscape.

About Cara

Meet Cara, a courageous entrepreneur with a heart for birth work. Cara spent the first decade of her career advocating for traumatized individuals and helping them navigate complex systems. She worked with survivors of sexual violence in the US criminal justice system, refugees in the international asylum system, and newly resettled refugees in the US. As she prepared for the birth of her first child, Cara was committed to having an empowering birth experience. Despite limited funds and insurance coverage, she and her spouse invested in a Doula and educated themselves about birth, ultimately feeling empowered and respected as active participants in the birth room.

After her transformative birth experience, Cara continued her work as an advocate for survivors of sexual violence, but also started to focus on birth work. She trained and certified as a birth doula, and started her own business offering doula, childbirth education, and prenatal yoga services throughout San Diego County. With every birth, Cara learned something new and was continuously humbled by the beauty and unpredictability of the birthing process.

As life took her family on a journey of moves and career changes, Cara put her birth work on hold for a while. She pursued a Masters in Executive Leadership Public Administration, thinking she would return to nonprofit leadership. However, the birth of her sister's child reignited Cara's passion for birth work, and she relaunched her business as Brave Journey.

Today, Cara's Brave Journey offers birth preparation courses and coaching that invite birthing people to self-reflect on their beliefs about birth and parenting, and offers support and resources for a beautiful and empowering birth experience. With her extensive experience in advocacy and birth work, Cara is a compassionate and knowledgeable guide for individuals and couples on their journey to parenthood.

Cara's approach is trauma-aware, LGBTQIA+ inclusive, and nonjudgmental.

Certifications, Degrees, & Professional Associations

Cara is an accomplished Certified Professional Birth Doula with toLabor, a Birthing From Within Trained Childbirth Educator, and a professional member of Evidence Based Birth. Her passion for birth work is evident through her extensive professional development, including completing workshops with organizations such as Spinning Babies, Nurturely Milk Magic, and the San Diego Breastfeeding Center.

While Cara chooses not to take on private birth doula clients, she provides exceptional care and support as a member of the Doula team at Whole Mama Wellness Collective and on the Doula team at Wombkeepers Obstetrics & Midwifery Practice in Scottsdale, AZ.

Cara’s educational background includes a BA in Anthropology from Arizona State University, an Executive Leadership Master’s in Public Administration from the University of Washington, and a graduate certificate in Migration and Refugee Studies from The American University in Cairo. She is also a certified Yoga Teacher and Prenatal Yoga Teacher, with training from Akasha Yoga and Soul of Yoga, respectively.

Beyond her professional work, Cara remains an active member of her community, serving on the Advisory Board of St. Andrew's Refugee Services in Cairo, Egypt, and co-founding Refugees Thrive International as a dedicated board member.

Grounding in Place: Indigenous Land Acknowledgement

Brave Journey is located in modern-day Phoenix, Arizona, which is on the ancestral lands of the Akimel O’odham tribe and before that the Hohokam people. This place where I live and work has been and continues to be the home of indigenous peoples since time immemorial. I honor the elders of both past and present, as well as future generations, of the Hohokam peoples and the Akimel O’odham nation. I express gratitude for their stewardship of the land we currently occupy.

Prehistorically, the Hohokam people inhabited a large part of central and southern Arizona. Their descendants, the Akimel O’odham tribe (River People) are also known as the Upper Pima, and today are part of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.

Indigenous ancestors of these groups developed the most advanced canal system in North America to provide irrigation water to villages and agricultural lands here in the harsh Sonoran Desert environment. Hundreds of miles of canals were engineered and dug by hand. These systems allowed them to engage in canal farming and produce an ample supply of food. Some of these historic canal courses are still utilized in the Phoenix Valley and my home receives flood irrigation water from these historic canal courses, today. I acknowledge this important infrastructure that early colonizers, modern day populations, and myself and my family have benefitted from.