Community Highlights: Meet Brianna Shrum of Embrace Birth

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brianna Shrum.

Hi Brianna, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
For me, my business being open and active is a walk throughout my life. My fascination with birth started at a very young age and continued well into adulthood. As a six-year-old, watching “A Birth Story” on TLC was much more fulfilling as opposed to your typical childhood cartoons. In my kindergarten yearbook, I even wrote that I wanted to be a baby doctor. As I grew up, I realized that I wanted to be more in a support role and hands-on than what an OB/GYN typically is. I worked my way through high school, graduated a year early, and was determined to go to nursing school to become a Labor and Delivery Nurse.

I believe that life has a way of putting you exactly where you need to be, exactly when you need to be there. I ended up changing majors and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in Sociology. My undergraduate thesis was written on Postpartum Depression and risk factors associated with Postpartum Depression. During college, I ended up marrying my wife and having two out of three of my beautiful little boys.

Through watching my wife give birth naturally with our first, I found out about the love and support a doula offers for birthing parents. We have three beautiful boys now who each wrote their own birth story. I had a doula for our two younger boys, which was an amazing asset. I truly couldn’t have gone through my births without my doulas, and to be frank, I don’t think any woman should have to go through their birth without a doula.

In the fall after my third baby was born, I attended training to become a doula. During training, I knew that this field was exactly where I was supposed to be. A year later, in the fall of 2021, I began Embrace Birth Co. — a doula business that helps to empower birthing parents and allow them to truly embrace their birth. Since then, I have had the absolute honor to watch many birthing parents transition into parenthood and embrace their birth exactly how they felt fit.

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?
I think, with anything, there are always hurdles and struggles. For me, I struggled with my own abilities and self-worth. My childhood was hard and filled with a lot of grief and pain, which really created a lot of self-doubt for me as an adult. I had to work through a lot of those things before launching my business. My dad, who raised me as a single father, always reminds me of how I have defied the odds that were stacked against me throughout my life.

I got married and had my first son at only eighteen, which came with hurdles as well. I ultimately grew up with my wife while raising a baby — which was HARD. It took me quite a while to figure out who I wanted to be and to work through some of the insecurities that stemmed from my own childhood. When it came time to launch my own business, I had a lot of doubt in my abilities and struggled with the fear of failing. How was I going to raise three of my own children and start a business from the ground up? Could I even be successful at this? How do I set myself apart? Sometimes, we are our own worst enemy and this was absolutely true for me. Once I worked through some of those feelings of impending failure, I took my big leap and began advertising. For only being an active business for a little less than a year now, I feel that I have done really well.

Through my first few births, I figured out exactly what kind of doula I wanted to be and how I wanted to grow my business to continue serving my clients. Although I do have some slow months where I don’t have as many clients, I am staying pretty consistent — which has been so amazing for me. I have been fortunate enough to be pretty well supported in taking this big leap and my wife has been an absolute rockstar who reminds me to keep going even when I feel as if things aren’t going perfectly.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
I opened Embrace Birth Co. as a birth doula to support birthing parents physically, mentally, and emotionally throughout their pregnancy and birth. I believe that birthing parents should have autonomy and informed consent when it comes to their bodies and birth. It is so important that these parents understand what is happening to them during their birth and have the empowerment to speak up for what they want. By acting as a doula, I am able to help walk them through informed consent and help them really create the birth plan that they want.

Doulas are able to reduce the likelihood of unnecessary interventions and increase birth satisfaction. As a birth doula, I have attended home births, birthing center births, and hospital births. I have worked with VBAC births, cesarean sections, inductions, natural hospital births, and birth after loss. Outside of my doula training, I have additional training in VBACs, and inclusive care, and will be attending a Spinning Babies workshop in the coming months. As a mother myself, I know that birth does not always go the way that we want it to. I ended up having two cesarean sections with my own little ones, so I am particularly passionate about holding space for parents regardless of their birth wants or what happens during their birth. As a company, I really emphasize the collaboration of other small businesses within my own small business.

I offer a birth photography package with a local photographer, Taylor Cheyenne Photography at a discounted rate, refer out to Tennessee Placenta Services for those interested in Placenta Encapsulation, refer out to Sonder Birth and Lactation for those needing additional lactation support, and gift my clients with a postpartum gift box created by Hannah Ladd with Little White House Apothecary. I also use Sonder Birth and Lactation and KW Birth Services regularly so that my clients have a consistent backup team in the rare case that I cannot attend a birth. By working with these other small businesses, I am able to make sure my clients have all of the additional resources that they need for their birth while supporting other business owners. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I am passionate about providing support for all birthing parents, not just women.

I am consistently learning how to remain inclusive to all individuals regardless of sexual orientation, gender, race, or religious beliefs. I am currently training to become certified in postpartum doula training that really focuses on caring for the parent after birth and pampering them to make them feel safe, heard, and loved during their postpartum window. I am also working on my Childbirth Educator training to offer Childbirth Education to my clients. Embrace Birth Co. believes that everyone deserves to have a doula, and I give away one birth a year from my scholarship fund to help support those who cannot afford to obtain a birth doula. Currently, I offer birth doula services, virtual birth planning sessions, virtual postpartum planning sessions, and sibling birth services.

Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Finding your path can sometimes be hard and it’s not always black and white. Never back down from what you want from your life and be intentional in that. Everyone can do exactly what they want to do when they set their heart and mind to it. If you are pregnant or planning on getting pregnant, know your options for birth. There are so many different options that you can choose for your birth.

By being educated in common interventions, different birthing environments, and understanding the physiological process of birth, you can be sound in that. To be frank, I feel like every birthing parent deserves to have doula support during their birth. It truly makes you feel cherished and empowered — which is ultimately the goal of my work.

Pricing:

• Birth Doula Services: $1,100.00 (payment plans available)
• Birth Doula/Photography Package: $1,800.00 (payment plans available)
• Sibling Doula Services: $450.00 (payment plans available)
• Virtual Birth Plan Creation: $200.00 (payment plans available)
• Virtual Postpartum Planning Session: $250.00 (payment plans available)

Contact Info:

• Website: www.embracebirthco.com
• Instagram: @embracebirthco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/embracebirthco

Image Credits
Taylor Cheyenne Photography