about MOE + me
Mother of Ease (MOE) is a Black maternal and family care practice whose principal focus is the birthing experiences of Black folk.
My private practice is intimately inspired by and devoted to the centering and advancement of safe keeping, space holding, rest promoting, and joy flowing for Black women and their kin/folk. I offer my care to folks of color who desire guidance beyond the standard American childbearing continuum support experience. I devote my presence during remarkable life transitions - delivering a culturally-empathetic and individually-tailored approach to address the many needs that rise during pregnancy, labor + birth, postpartum and early motherhood.
MOE’s thought leadership in academic spaces and handiwork in community efforts distinctly promote the thriving of women and families on this soil - for the homes and lives they are building. I have been called to this work. God has gifted and fitted me for the deliverance of an uncommon support - through firm planting in ancestral history, my personal family-of-origin narratives, lived experiences + education gathered while building my own tribe, in leading me to invaluable teachings at the feet of Black women who have pioneered before me, and through a revelation that graced me in the form of a dream.
Kris Elle | CD, CLC®
I was born in the Winter of an average December in Long Beach, CA, to two young Black lovers from Watts and Crenshaw. Raised in the suburbs of Southern California, as the oldest of four, I spent my childhood soaking up the sun and the everyday nuances of Black family life in America. My most cherished university experience was spent as a student at the University of Southern California, before ultimately (have a lot of community college experience in there, too) completing my undergraduate studies at Loyola Marymount University in L.A. with a B.A. in Communication Studies. I’m a researcher and writer at heart - a consistent student. I love nonfiction works and deepening my understanding of histories, preparing loose-leaf tea & tisanes, traveling, reveling in nature, being with the family I’ve helped create, every FaceTime and real time with my dearest girlfriends and spending good time alone, restorative yoga, watching sophisticated and not so sophisticated shows, baking and eating good food and frequently saying yes to old and new ways of living.
I married my best friend and the forever love of my life in Los Angeles in January of 2008 and we’ve since welcomed five beautiful children to complete our family. When I became pregnant with our first child, I was a healthy, college-educated, newly married, twenty-something Black woman with less than desirable health insurance coverage. I quickly found myself at the imposing whims of medical care providers and a hospital community with little interest in my preferences or personhood - from pregnancy to postpartum. Enduring a highly medicalized laboring and birthing experience without informed consent, followed by successive suffering with undiagnosed postpartum depression - this introduction into a new facet of womanhood & motherhood inspired my extensive exploration, sleepless nights and years of detailed research - and eventual success in finding alternative, respectful, supportive models of care for my future birthing experiences and postpartum healing - setting a framework for the future work I would be able to lavishly embody on behalf of the women who would one day grace my path, along their journey to welcoming life on this soil.
I have given birth in hospitals and in homes and in three different states - Tennessee, California and Colorado. I have experienced care from OB/GYN’s, CNM’s and CPM’s. I have been financially unwell and pregnant and financially well and pregnant. I have relied on government health insurance and private health insurance. I have labored with Pitocin and an eventual lumbar epidural and journeyed four births without medical induction or pain medication. I have known long labor, quick labor, and a precipitous labor that led to my husband standing in for the midwife. I’ve studied hypnobirthing on my own and been successful with implementation - my favorite laboring experience. I’ve mothered three, five and under and five, seven and under - I’ve homeschooled one, and now five children from preschool to now and continue to nurture our little family of seven. In November 2021, I successfully completed the Healthy Children Project, Inc: Lactation Counselor Training Program and the Mama Glow Doula Homeschool: Professional Doula Training Program. I am currently practicing as a Certified Doula, Professional Childbirth Educator, and ALPP Certified Lactation Counselor.®