About Embrace
We’re here to hold the whole of you.
Meet the Team
Get to know our Team
Cayla De Tar
Cayla’s birthwork began with her own empowering homebirth, and a mission to help others feel just as informed and supported. She blends evidence-based education with intuitive, compassionate care, helping clients feel confident in every decision.
With a special focus on movement, Cayla supports the body through pregnancy, birth, and recovery, believing small shifts can lead to big transformation.
✨ Fun fact: When she’s not doula-ing, Cayla’s on the trails, hiking, paddleboarding, or skiing with her husband.
Mili Buraschi
Mili’s birth journey began with feeling unheard, and sparked her mission to help others feel informed, respected, and supported. With a calm, empowering presence, she walks beside families through pregnancy and birth, advocating fiercely and honoring every unique experience.
She’s also an EMT and future OB/GYN PA, blending deep medical insight with heart-centered care.
✨ Fun fact: Originally from Argentina, Mili now calls Tahoe home, where she hikes, skis, and soaks up mountain life with joy.
Krystal Long
Krystal founded Embrace with one simple belief: every family deserves to feel informed, respected, and deeply supported throughout pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. After her own birth experience changed the course of her life, she dedicated herself to helping families navigate this season with confidence, evidence-based education, and unwavering compassion.
For more than 16 years, Krystal has supported hundreds of families as a birth doula, Certified Lactation Counselor, childbirth educator, and placenta encapsulation specialist. She has a special passion for VBAC support, physiologic birth, breastfeeding, and helping parents trust both their instincts and the evidence as they make decisions that are right for their family.
✨ Fun fact: Krystal is a mom of five, has an unapologetic love for coffee, and is always in the middle of a new craft project—or adding another houseplant to her collection.
Jenea Maitri
Jenea blends her expertise in behavioral science, somatic healing, and holistic care to offer deeply personalized birth and postpartum support. She helps families feel safe, seen, and empowered, prioritizing informed consent and grounded presence every step of the way.
With a background in counseling, yoga, and meditation, Jenea creates custom support that nurtures both body and mind.
✨ Fun fact: She’s a proud mom, a lover of the outdoors, and shares her home with a beagle and a tuxedo cat.
Sayanna Chavez
Sayanna’s journey into birthwork began with a childhood dream, and became reality when she returned home to Tahoe and followed her heart. She now supports families with calm, empowering care, creating space for strength, connection, and grace during birth and beyond.
With a special focus on VBACs, NICU family support, and placenta encapsulation, Sayanna brings lived experience and deep compassion to every birth.
✨ Fun fact: She’s currently studying midwifery, with a dream of offering even deeper care as a midwife.
Larissa McCullough
Larissa became a doula after navigating pregnancy with limited support, and turned that experience into a mission to serve families with empathy, knowledge, and care. She’s a birth nerd, a thoughtful listener, and passionate about helping parents make informed, confident choices.
With a focus on trauma-informed care and sleep support, she’s there when families need a steady, compassionate presence most.
✨ Fun fact: Larissa loves hiking, reading, and coaxing her patio plants to thrive, when her toddler lets her.
Lena Merialdo-Mayo
Lena became a doula after feeling the deep lack of support in her own postpartum journey. With a background in early childhood education, she now offers the grounded, compassionate care she once needed, helping new parents feel more confident, seen, and supported.
She specializes in babywearing, lactation, multiples, and inclusive care for LGBTQ+ and neurodiverse families.
✨ Fun fact: Lena’s a music lover, gardener, and frog mom to two tree frogs named Basil and Sage.
Jordanne Cabrera
Jordanne became a doula out of deep love for birth and the families who walk that path. After navigating her own challenging birth experiences, she felt called to offer the calm, grounded support she once needed.
With a background as a Certified Nursing Assistant, Jordanne brings both medical awareness and nurturing presence to every family she serves, holding space with empathy, strength, and unwavering care.
✨ Fun fact: Jordanne is a sourdough baker, nature-loving mom, and former pageant queen turned passionate birthworker.
Cascade Bishop
Cascade has dedicated her career to supporting children and families, spending many years in early childhood before expanding her work into birth and postpartum care. She believes every family deserves personalized support that honors their unique values, goals, and journey into parenthood.
With a calm, thoughtful approach, Cascade helps families navigate pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and feeding with confidence. As an Early Childhood Specialist, Parent Coach, and Certified Lactation Counselor, she has a special passion for sibling transitions, infant feeding, and helping families feel supported every step of the way.
✨ Fun fact: Cascade is a mom of three who has experienced birth in a hospital, birth center, and at home—with her older children present for her home birth.
Taryn Kinder
Taryn is inspired by the strength, wisdom, and intuition every family carries into birth. She believes parents deserve evidence-based information, compassionate support, and the freedom to make decisions that feel right for them.
With a calm, grounded presence, Taryn supports families through pregnancy, birth and postpartum with trust empathy, and respect. She has a special passion for sibling transitions , disability inclusion, and trauma-informed, person-centered care.
✨ Fun Fact: Taryn has been crocheting for over 20 years and loves creating everything from clothing and bags to stuffed animals - all completely freehand!
Jessica Herbert
Jessica supports families through one of life’s biggest transitions, with intuition, compassion, and a deep belief in your strength. Her care is trauma-informed, personalized, and rooted in trust, whether she’s holding space in labor or capturing the beauty of your story through birth photography.
She’s here to help you feel confident, empowered, and truly seen.
✨ Fun fact: Jessica’s a board game lover, outdoor enthusiast, and always has a novel tucked in her birth bag.
Alyssa Lopez
Alyssa believes birth transforms more than just babies, it transforms parents too. With a calm, grounded presence, she supports families through the early days with twins, multiples, and newborns, offering practical help, emotional support, and babywearing guidance.
Her passion is helping parents feel cared for, confident, and never alone in the transition home.
✨Fun fact: When she’s not snuggling babies, Alyssa is out snowboarding, mountain biking, or coaching youth in the mountains she loves.
Nora Anderson
Nora became a doula after years of witnessing the sacred strength of birth—from her mother’s own home birth to the arrival of twelve nieces and nephews. For her, supporting families in this tender transition feels like a calling and a return to home.
She brings a quiet, grounded presence to every birth, holding space with deep trust in a family’s intuition, and honoring each journey with calm, compassion, and care.
✨ Fun fact: Nora swims in freshwater every single day—rain, snow, or shine—and is happiest in the kitchen baking sourdough and sharing homemade meals with the people she loves.
