My Philosophy On Birth
You’ll stop fighting the waves when you realize you’re the ocean.
For millennia, women have had intrinsic knowledge of how to safely and effectively birth our babies - and obstetrical birth practitioners have spent the last 115 years doing everything in their power to completely erase our confidence in our own bodies, to replace it with fear and distrust. Hospitals push augmentations for their convenience to maximize patient turnover, and it’s leaving us with birth trauma, permanent injuries, debilitating medical debt, and a horrifying maternal mortality rate — especially for women of color. 80% of maternal deaths in the United States are preventable.
We deserve to understand what our options are, their risks and benefits, the alternatives, and the time to consider them.
We deserve advocacy, education, support, and encouragement.
We deserve better than bare-minimum-at-best care.
We deserve to feel safe, heard, and respected.
It wasn’t always like this. And it doesn’t have to stay this way.
The midwifery model of care focuses on spending more time and attention with our birth clients, and building that deep confidence and trust in your body’s ability to safely and powerfully bring your baby in the world, regardless of where you end up delivering. As a member of your birth team, I strive to provide supportive advocacy and empowering education, and hope to build a strong connection with you, to get to know you better, and to understand your vision of what you want your birth to be like.
The most important thing you can do to prepare for birth is heal the parts of you that learned it wasn’t safe to trust your body.
-Demi Betschart
Birth Photographer - Doula - Phase 2 Student Midwife
My name is Jordan Tomkinson, and I’m so excited to be part of your birth team! While this page is primarily my birth photography portfolio and blog, I am also a doula, a Phase 2 Student Midwife and Birth Assistant with Utah Birth Suites, a Certified Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) Advanced Provider, and a Certified Victim Advocate through the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
When I’m not behind the camera, I keep myself busy with my husband Chris, our 3 awesome kids, and 3 cats. In my downtime, I enjoy knitting, crochet, drawing, painting, collecting my favorite albums on vinyl, running Dungeons & Dragons one-shots for friends, getting about 20 hugs a day from my youngest, hanging out online with my husband’s Twitch stream community, cackling together at TikToks after the kids go to bed, and taking our kids on spontaneous overnight adventure trips.
My Birth Toolkit
I bring a doula bag with me to every birth, and it includes a range of effective tools that many of us student midwives and doulas have come to love. This includes:
a rebozo (pictured: a large traditional woven Mexican scarf) which is great for swaying with your body, supporting your belly, tug-of-war if you have an epidural and are having a hard time pushing, even changing baby’s position, and shaking tension out of your back, hips, and legs. I have a full album displaying some of these rebozo techniques in my portfolio!
a massage gun, which can relieve tension and distract your brain from contractions, provide comfort and reinvigorate your birth team for those long births where we’ve all been on our feet for hours on end, and comes with multiple attachment heads for a variety of sensations to target specific needs.
wood combs to squeeze in your hands, in what we call the “gate control” technique - your nervous system can only process so much sensory input at one time, and by squeezing the rounded points of these combs into the Laogong acupressure point in the palm of your hand, you can disrupt some of your pain signals, which may be effective to ride through particularly intense contractions.
battery powered candles and a galaxy lamp - warm candlelight has been proven to stimulate your natural oxytocin production, while harsh bright lights are less relaxing and can be a hindrance to labor progression. Cozy lighting allows you to more easily slip into the liminal space of birth.
Do you cope well with pain? How would you describe your pain tolerance? Is an unmedicated birth important to you? What coping techniques work for you? Are you planning to bring any tools or utilize specific techniques during your labor?
Pictured: At Naolí Vinaver’s rebozo workshop, midwives and doulas gathered to learn about what a powerful tool the traditional Mexican rebozo is to support mothers through pregnancy and birth. Karely gently rocks Dani’s hips, while she melts into Isabelle’s arms. Look at the bliss on Dani’s face!
Pain Management
& Coping Techniques
Whether you’re a nervous first time mom planning a hospital induction and have full intentions of getting the epidural the moment an anesthesiologist is available, or you’re a seasoned 4th time mom planning to go med-free in a home birth or at a birth center, I like to talk through the game plan with you ahead of time.
The brief window between back-to-back intense contractions with a posterior baby isn’t exactly the ideal time to be asking if you’re interested in trying a rebozo technique, or if you’d like to try my massage gun… you’re kinda busy!! Let’s chat about what I bring with me BEFORE you’re in transition and ♬ screaming, crying, throwing up ♬
Whether the initial plan is for me to be a ninja photographer silently witnessing your labor through my camera lens, or I’m supporting you as a doula and taking turns offering counter-pressure with your husband, mom, or bestie, I bring my full kit to each birth I attend. You’re welcome to borrow and utilize all of the tools I have to make your birth experience more comfortable.
Pictured: Megan calmly labors through the night in the birth tub after a full day of labor, comforted by the gentle touch of her husband Rhett, and the soothing sensation of hot water being poured over her belly by her doula, while battery powered candles help facilitate even more oxytocin production.
Later, when contractions got more intense, she squeezed a wooden comb. After multiple successful unmedicated births, this powerful mama (and doula!) utilized every last tool in her bag to ride out the pain of this very long and exhausting labor, eventually asking for nitrous and an epidural so she could rest for the pushing phase.
What’s In My Camera Bag
Many of my peers and clients also enjoy photography, and I love when we start chatting about our backgrounds, our photographic interests and styles, our favorite photographers, our favorite resources to learn tips and tricks from, what our “dream photography jobs” would be (mine is a National Geographic landscape photographer, but I really enjoy wildlife too!) and our journeys to refine our skills.
Sometimes we have time to sit down and open up my camera bag together to “talk shop” and discuss camera bodies and lenses, and sometimes we don’t. What I bring to a shoot depends greatly on where we’ll be photographing at, and how much my back hurts on any given day, but generally I roll up to a session with:
my MVP combo for compact birth spaces: Sony a7R V + 24mm f/1.4GM
my tried and true for fun portraits with friends: Rokinon 85mm f/1.4 Series II
my just-in-case: Rokinon 50mm f/1.4 Series II
my second shooter: Sony a7R II
If my back isn’t killing me and I’ve got time to grab some extra gear, I’ll also bring my Manfrotto mini tripod and phone grip for sidelines videos at births, some rugged mini spotlights, and rarely, my Godox V1S flash.
Trauma Informed Care
If you have trauma - whether that’s birth trauma, sexual trauma, abuse trauma, childhood trauma, and more - you may find that labor pushes you past your emotional limits to hold back pain you didn’t think would come up in your birth space. Trauma can be a bit unpredictable that way, and it makes sense to me that the transformational experience of birth can break the walls we put around the hard things to protect ourselves.
We can discuss your trauma and associated things that are still triggering for you. Maybe it’s being touched in certain places or ways on your body. Maybe it’s vaginal or perineal pain. It’s healthy to set boundaries with your care team, and it’s important to protect your mindset during birth, to prevent actions or conversations that activate your trauma and make you spiral into PTSD.
As a Certified Victim Advocate through UCASA, I am equipped to have very difficult and sensitive conversations, and I have connections to help you get access to resources available to you if you need them. Yes, this means I am a mandated reporter - if I suspect a child is being abused or neglected, I am required by law to report it.
You deserve to welcome your baby into the world in an environment that feels safe to you.
It’s important to me to support you through this experience with every tool in my skillset - including my experience and knowledge relating to trauma. Please know you can talk to me about even the most uncomfortable and heartbreaking things, without judgment or victim blaming.
Victims of trauma experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts, and postpartum hormones put us at even greater risk of experiencing mental illness. I experienced severe postpartum mental illness for over 8 years. You are not alone, and you can message me any time.
