Birth Classes in McAllen, TX

Today we welcome Brandi Kennedy, who teaches birth classes in McAllen, TX, to the Birth Boot Camp family. Brandi is an experienced childbirth educator and we are so glad she has chosen to join us. Not only that, she’s an experienced doula.

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Welcome Brandi!

Introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your birth experiences.

I moved from California to Texas in 2007 with my husband. I have a stepdaughter who resides in California, and I have son who was born in 2010 in the Rio Grande Valley.

I have a degree in Business Administration, am a certified birth doula with Childbirth International, as well as a certified Birth Boot Camp Instructor.

In 2009, I began my pregnancy like many women. I was with a OB/GYN that had been recommended to me, and was set to go to one of the local hospitals. When I was six months pregnant I went to a Le Leche League meeting to mingle with liked minded mothers.

I expressed my desire for a natural birth, and was asked if I was taking any childbirth classes. In my naivety I thought I would, “just say no to drugs.”

Wrong!

I was given the number of a local instructor and began my journey into a lengthy natural childbirth class. By class three my husband and I realized that our birth team and place was not aligned with what I was envisioning for my birth.

We made a decision at 27 weeks to change my care to a birth center with certified nurse midwives. It was the best decision I have EVER made. I had an empowering transformative water birth with very limited interventions.

What first got you interested in birth work?

The birth of my son rocked me to the core. I prepared for it, had faith in myself, and succeeded! My positive experience was all I could talk about. After my husband and I decided that it was best for me to stay at home to raise our son, he suggested that I look into teaching people what we learned.

Within the year of my birth, 2011, I was certified and teaching classes. Two years into teaching I naturally expanded my support for women by becoming a birth doula.

Do you have any particular passions concerning birth?

My passion is in empowering women in birth, so that we can change the birth narrative that is currently in our society. I want to change the fear with faith.

I want to help women make informed choices about their bodies, birth, and babies. I want to teach families to be diligent consumers while listening to their intuition. Birth can be a positive experience!

Why did you choose Birth Boot Camp as your certifying organization?

After teaching childbirth classes for six years with another organization, I decided to switch to Birth Boot Camp for a few reasons. I loved the current curriculum. I loved the professionalism of management. I loved all the media materials (website, books, etc). I loved all the positive things I was hearing in the birth world about this company. I also loved the online class option!

Tell us a little about your Birth Boot Camp training experience- what did you like about it, where was it, who was your trainer?

I went through training in 2016. Founder Donna Ryan and Sarah Clark were the trainers. The work that was required to even get into the workshop was extensive. Thousands of pages read and thousands of words written!

It really was a grueling few months, but it was wonderful to have that under our belt before attending the live training. The workshop required some long days, but it was fun and informative. I was extremely impressed with ALL of management. They were professional, supportive, and inspiring.

How did your training help prepare you for teaching?

The entire series is covered in the training. We performed all of the activities so that we understood what that teaching tool was supposed to look like. It would have been hard without the hands on training.

Professionally, we received tutorials on how to market ourselves, how to be success in the industry, and how the back end of the organization ran so that we understood clearly how to get the resources we needed.