about me

Welcome! I’m so happy you’re here!

My name is Catie Cushing, I’m a full spectrum doula living on Wappinger, Munsee Lenape and Schaghticoke land (Westchester County, NY). I’m a Gemini sun, Aquarius rising, Capricorn moon, music lover, artist and a big believer in community support.

I’m a non-binary/gender fluid person and my pronouns are they/them, although I do believe the terms “girlie” and “gorgeous gorgeous girls” are gender neutral!

Doula work found me 2018 after I spent years searching for a career that I felt actually meant something. I would discover later “meaning something” meant working in a support role for people going through huge life transitions such as birth.

After high school, I worked in the retail industry for several years and found myself completely switching gears to law in 2014. I loved the idea of working a corporate job and going into the office every day, but as a June Gemini, this got real boring real fast. I spent three years with that law firm, learned so much and cultivated some amazing relationships but still felt like I wanted to do more for the world around me.

In 2017 I left the law firm to pursue a career in music therapy. I had been a musician most of my life and thought that this would surely be my path. But little did I know, just over the horizon was a career that would blow my world and my heart wide open.

I’ve always been a seeker. I’ve searched for connection my whole life, whether it be to other people, the world around me, animals, plants, hobbies, you name it. I started the long path to becoming a music therapist and still found myself searching, yearning, looking for a path that would connect me to other people and allow me the opportunity to give people the support I know they deserve.

June 2018 I took my first doula training with my amazing teachers Erica Livingston and Laura Interlandi (find their work here!). That first training was so beautiful and opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed. This particular training was specifically written for the postpartum period, which felt really important (and still does!) because the postpartum period is overlooked by many many medical professionals.

In June of 2020, with the death of George Floyd and the civil unrest that was (rightfully) growing in the US, I felt it was important to expand the depth of my trainings and my career and invest in a training that was centered around the Black, queer experience of birth and postpartum. Up until this point, I existed in the world as a bisexual, cisgendered woman. Birth Advocacy Doula Trainings continued to rock my world and open my heart up even more. BADT not only gave me permission to question the way that I was raised and examine my privilege, it also gave me permission to be the truest form of myself. I am forever indebted to them.

And that brings us to today! These days, I am living on the land that I grew up on, working in the childcare industry and the birth world and continually expanding my practice as a doula and practitioner of other modalities. I’m working through another BADT training currently to deepen and expand my understanding of birth, postpartum and abortion and how each of these experiences affects us as humans.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! You have read my whole doula story. I thank you for taking the time and space to read about me. I’m looking forward to supporting you!