16/03/2026
How did I get here?
Sometimes I ask myself that question.
In 9th grade, in a small town in East Germany, my school director called me into her office. She told me that I would not be allowed to attend high school or university to study medicine, something I had dreamed of for years. My parents were not members of the communist party, and we were in contact with family in West Germany. That was enough to close certain doors. So I changed course.
If medicine was not possible, I would follow my other love: languages. I studied Spanish, English and pedagogy and as soon as the wall came down, I joined one of the first exchange programs abroad. That decision opened the world.
I studied in the north of Europe, lived in Seattle, worked in Mexico and Cuba, then spent several years in Toronto and Miami. Languages became my bridge into different cultures, friendships and ways of life. And yet, something in me kept returning to an earlier calling.
During my first pregnancy, I felt the pull to support women again. I trained as a midwife and eventually ran a small home birth practice, accompanying hundreds of women through pregnancy, birth and the tender beginning of family life.
Years later, with three boys of my own, life called me back to Berlin, closer to my family and close to my father during the last years of his life. And another shift began.
I realized that women give birth in many ways. Not only to babies, but to new identities, ideas, careers and chapters of life. Today, through coaching, I support women in these transitions.
When I look back, I see that none of these chapters were accidental. Each one widened my lens. Each one deepened my understanding of people, cultures and the many paths a life can take.
And all of them led me here 🌿