Inspiring Conversations with Tessa B. & Shaina W. of Formama

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tessa B. & Shaina W. .

Hi Tessa B. & Shaina W., thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hello there, we are so excited to be doing this! Thank you for talking with us today. So, we are a sister doula team and after our own individual transformational births, we both felt the undeniable drive to become birth workers. Within our own birth stories, we realized the importance of knowing your options, making empowered decisions and knowing that our bodies were created to birth. We started formama with the desire to partner with women through their most sacred journey. We know the importance of having a team that supports, empowers, and guides you through this season is invaluable and we wanted to be that to other mamas,
We believe birth is a natural physiological process that was meant to be joyful, transformative and miraculous. Partnering with mamas and families has been so humbling – to see a women in her most vulnerable, powerful state and walk alongside her as she goes from maiden to mother.

Today we are partnering with mamas from hospitals to home births, leading postpartum groups and using our platform as a way to cultivate community.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Besides the obvious hurdles that come with starting a business and working in the birth world where nothing is linear or “planned”; this journey has been filled with exciting, humbling, vulnerable, trying and truly beautiful as we watch women become mothers in front of our eyes.

As you know, we’re big fans of formama. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We are full spectrum doulas, childbirth educators and birth/lifestyle photographers.

We use our platform to encourage, empower and bring women together through our Instagram, podcast and hosting mama-focused postpartum groups

As a sister doula team, we are able to do consults together as we connect with future clients and it has been such an amazing opportunity for us to walk this journey alongside one another.

Our company stands out in the birth world because we truly take a team approach for each family we meet. Our heart within each partnership is to ultimately be a part of your family.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Starting a business in 2021 was a major risk. We started a business while both working full-time jobs, both having babies under 1 and ultimately stepping out in faith with the hope that this business would actually take off while desiring to slowly pull back from our “day jobs”. Another risk would be the time and energy spent on the social media end – trusting “that if we build it they will come”. Our goal was to create a space where we would go and to create content that was actually needed whether that was laboring position videos, informed consent, ways to nourish your bodies or helping mamas understand physiological birth and the birthing process.

We believe in taking risks because ultimately, you will learn something from it. We are so glad we took this risk and started a business together!

Contact Info:

• Website: formamabirth.com
• Instagram: @formamabirth
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@formama
• Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hey-mama-the-formama-podcast/id1673905113

Image Credits
The Olive Bungalow/Tessa Joy Photography