ABOUT ALI CARR
I am a birth doula, a women’s circle facilitator, a writer and a mama of 3 on the westside of Los Angeles, where I live with my husband, Rich, and our dachshund, Mokey.
Well before I was a doula, I was the person who dropped a bag of nourishing groceries at your doorstep after you’d given birth, even if we didn’t know each other that well. I was also the one at the holiday party, huddled in the corner with a pregnant mama, deep in conversation about the magic and mystery of birth.
When I was pregnant with my second daughter, but not yet a doula, I was the mom planning a communal Baby Blessing for me and my pregnant friends to bring depth and ceremony to the birth portal we were all about to walk through.
I didn’t know it yet but I was subtly being called to doula work.
My birth experiences were also weaving themselves into this narrative. I had three wildly different births — I’ve birthed with a doula, without a doula, with a midwife, with an OBGYN, and have had care by a home birth midwife. My varied experiences help me hold space for all approaches — modern, ancestral and otherwise — and support whatever birth feels most aligned for you.
My call to support mamas came most clearly in 2018 when my two oldest daughters were 4 and 1 years old. I became a single mama and the importance of “the village” came fiercely into view — I needed it, but I also wanted to contribute to it.
I pivoted my work focus from an editorial career in outdoor adventure to one centered on supporting women. I lead content on a project at Nike supporting women from pre-conception through postpartum. There, I was steeped in wisdom from holistic perinatal experts across the globe including meditation and movement teachers, pelvic floor therapists, neurologists, doulas, spiritual guides, mental health counselors and more.
In 2023, I was diagnosed with and went through treatment for aggressive stage 1 breast cancer. Going through this experience gave me a reverence for the things that thread us back to our most primal selves, like birth, death, breath, movement, presence and nature. I found healing and guiding in them. This whole experience — and a steady meditation practice — made it clear that getting out from behind the computer and working with women on an intimate level was deeply important to me.
It was then that I embarked on a six-month perinatal apprenticeship with award-winning childbirth educator Britta Bushnell, author of Transformed by Birth, and opened my business, Wild Grace.
Moving through big life events — illness, birthing three babies, divorce, losing a parent mysteriously — have been the most valuable and defining experiences of my life. They have taught me that the heart of what this life is all about exists in the chasms that open when we have identity-shaking experiences. They offer us the opportunity to see that we are wells of resilience, resourcefulness, hope, and heart.
My goal is to support mamas in their own inner expansion and growth, whether in birth or in circle. While I hold a wealth of vastness in my birth experiences (and those of my clients), I don’t use them to color your experience, because what matters is that your choices come from you. We’ll unearth your intuition, develop resilience for the unexpected and replace fear, doubt and worry with a curiosity about the unknown and a trust in your own inner wisdom.
When I’m not working, I love to move my body in nature (hiking, skiing, swimming in the ocean, and more), play with my kids, and volunteer at their Waldorf school.
Through Wild Grace, I offer birth doula support and a virtual postpartum women’s circle called REWOVEN. I also facilitate an in-person midlife circle for women at WUUM in Santa Monica and take moms on retreat in wild places to bring them home to themselves.