Welcome! I’m Rebecca Koller.
I’ve been drawn to a slower paced, more holistic style of community care since childhood. As a young one I would watch Dr Quinn with my mom and fantasize about living a life like hers. Reading Starhawk’s book “The Fifth Sacred Thing” as a young adult continued to feed my fantasy (and remembrance) of traditional female healers. While apprenticing with an herbalist as a 20 year old, I discovered midwifery and homebirth. I knew that I needed to follow that path and, through a process of trust, I arrived at Birthwise Midwifery School as a 22 year old.
After graduating, I became certified as a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) by the North American Registry of Midwives in 2008. My training included apprenticing in a busy midwifery practice in Florida, attending births at home and in a freestanding birth center. At the end of my apprenticeship, I traveled to Bali to volunteer at a rural nonprofit birth center. The varied experiences helped me to develop skills useful in all kinds of births, as well as a passion for diversity and compassionate care.
I live in the woods with my husband and two children on the land my husband grew up on. Both my children were born here and giving birth to them was amazing and transformative. I love my town of Whitefield, Maine and see it as a vibrant, beautiful community. I am intensely invested in my community and strive to serve it well, as well as extending that care to surrounding communities. It would be an honor to walk with you through your pregnancy, birth, and new parenting journey.
My Philosophy of Birth & Midwifery Care
I believe that birth is a sacred and unique experience for each birthing person, baby, and family. I believe our experience of birth matters, but not that it always has to be as we imagine it or desire it to be. I feel strongly that there is space for both science and spirituality in birth — that both matter individually yet are also interconnected.
I strive to provide individualized care and honor the uniqueness of the birthing individual, the family, and the community that they are a part of. I am invested in the preservation of homebirth and reverence for midwives and the role that they have played throughout time. I am deeply grateful for all the midwives who came before me — those who lost their lives or livelihoods while serving their communities and those who persevered and maintained the traditions through an array of social, political, and technological changes and challenges.
Through practicing traditional midwifery infused with some of the best 21st century resources and research, I hope to contribute to increasing knowledge and respect for reproductive processes and help to foster strong and healthy people, families, and communities.
“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”
The Story of the MotherSeed
Midwifery Name
After a decade of private midwifery practice, I was ready to create a new practice name that better reflected my values and philosophy. One day, my 5-year-old son asked me to marry him. I responded that, if marriage is a union between two people, he and I were already “married.” Growing and birthing him was one of the greatest connections possible.
I then tried to explain to him that when I was growing within my mother’s body (his grandmother), I had inside of me the seeds (oocytes/eggs) that would potentially become my own babies. He was already part of me even as I was forming in the womb. After this conversation, I got lost in thought exploring this incredible connection that we share with our mothers and our children.
I imagined myself as an unborn human inside my mother and remembered that the seed that I grew from existed within my mom while she was in her mother (my loving grandmother). This connects directly to the womb, including its cycles. I envisioned the fertile layer (the lining of the uterus, the topsoil of the human); the seed (the ovum) to be planted and take root; the space, nutrients, and waters to grow the seed; the ability and flexibility to grow and change to support life; the incredible strength (contractions) to push forth a new life; and the resiliency and flexibility for recovery, involution, and preparation to go through the cycle again.
The phrase MotherSeed came to me while lost in this journey, filled with a reverence for the beauty of the maternal line. I wondered, “where does the mother seed begin?” I feel that it starts somewhere within the depths of the Earth — our greatest mother — who we have long been connected with.
As a midwife, I feel it’s important to honor the many ways we connect to mother, both literally and spiritually. MotherSeed Midwifery was born from this place of honoring and deep reverence for familial connection, the Earth, and our own birth journeys.
I want to recognize that not all people identify with the word or meaning of “mother.” That’s okay. This word and the matrilineal line feels important to me personally, but my practice of midwifery always centers the person, however they relate to this journey. I look forward to learning about you, your experience of life, and how we can create a meaningful birth experience together.
“The moment I met Rebecca I knew that she was the person I wanted to help me orchestrate my homebirth. Her calm, peaceful demeanor eased the anxieties I had from my previous birth experience. Her guidance, wisdom, and compassion helped me to reconnect with myself deeply. Rebecca provided artfully crafted, thoughtful, skilled care during my pregnancy, birth, and postpartum period. She made me feel valued and respected which was something I didn’t have with my first pregnancy and hospital birth. She was instrumental in helping me to heal from past trauma and to reclaim autonomy of my own body. She walked me through my options, every step of the way, taking the time to help me make decisions I felt safe and comfortable with. She has been an endless advocate for my needs and my family’s needs during our time of transition. I could never fully articulate how grateful I am for the experience of working with Rebecca. She helped me to achieve the homebirth I had always hoped to have. And through that, helped me to heal in amazing and unexpected ways. It was an unforgettable experience start to finish and I could never thank her enough!”
