“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
—Albert Einstein
At GracefulFusion, we see the beauty and complexity in birth and death.
We recognize that birth is a physical, spiritual, and emotional experience for both birther and baby as new life enters this world. The old adage, “healthy baby, healthy mom” as the ultimate sign of a “good birth” is both reductive and damaging to the crucible of a birther’s experience.
Similarly, we recognize that a good death isn’t just “pain-free”—that transitioning from the world is just as precious as stepping into it.
This is why we’re dedicated to training, equipping, and empowering our communities with resilient doulas whose love for all stages of life shines from the inside out. Through education, encouragement, and community outreach, we step into life’s most incredible transitions with dignity, professionalism, and respect. Whether we're watching a human take their first breath or holding their hand as they breathe their last. We see the beauty in life and its great transitions.
Every part of life is a miracle, and we honor that principle by empowering doulas for every season of life.
NICOLE HEIDBREDER
Nicole Heidbreder has worked as a Hospice nurse and Labor & Delivery Nurse in various capacities for the last 13 years in the Washington DC area in addition to teaching Birth and End of Life Doula Workshops.
As a birth worker Nicole has been attending births as a doula for over 17 years here in DC, NYC, San Francisco, Sumatra, Bali, and Uganda, in addition to working as a labor & delivery nurse at GeorgeWashington University Hospital. Currently, she also facilitates independent birth doula workshops and trains nursing students as a Clinical Instructor with the Johns Hopkins University Birth Companions Program. Through her work as a DONA International approved Birth doula trainer, she has taught hundreds of women over the past 10 years and truly believes that teaching maternal child health is her life's calling.
As a death worker, Nicole supports people ending their life using Medical Aid in Dying and teaches End of Life Doula Workshops for the International End of Life Doula Association.
Through all of her work in education Nicole was proudly inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honors Society as a Leader in the field of Nursing and she sat on the George Washington University Hospital Ethics Committee for several years.
Prior to all of this, Nicole completed a Masters of Arts in Administration and Management from New York University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Illinois where she was a Ford Foundation Scholar.
She has lived, studied, worked, volunteered, and traveled in over 45 countries around the world. What continues to inspire and amaze her is the resilience and intelligence of the people she encounters, and how they gracefully face the highs and lows of life.
In physics, fusion is known as the process by which nuclei join in order to create energy. It is believed that this is what created us, the sun, and the stars. Like the birth of a star, sun, or distant corner of our universe, the birth of our children is no less a miracle. Indeed, it is an extraordinarily graceful miracle, presenting us with new joys and forever altering our lives. And eventually these particles will begin to separate at the end of life. It is Nicole’s great privilege and honor to be there as a healing witness to these shifts in other human’s lives.
When Nicole isn’t teaching classes or hosting one of her signature Death Cafes, you can find her playing with her two adorable cats: Apollo and Hermes.
