Hi, I’m Lynn Canzano Pyfer.
I am a trained doula working towards official certification with DONA International.
My journey to becoming a doula has been a wild one indeed! Most recently, I co-founded two education technology start-ups. Before that, I ran after-school programs and camps in Harlem and the Bronx, and managed program quality and evaluation at the oldest non-profit in the city. And prior to this I worked as a researcher in global health, family homelessness, and the built environment of NYC - after earning my Masters in Urban Planning and International Development from the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. All of this follows many other jobs and adventures after graduating from the University of Notre Dame.
Somewhere in this wonderful mess, I gave birth to two beautiful kids - with a large age gap (10 years!) and 3 miscarriages in between. Being pregnant with each was vastly different, as were the two births (one an emergency cesarean, the other an unmedicated VBAC). All the pregnancies and deliveries taught me what it meant to truly need deep levels of support and expertise from amazing women.
My doulas gave me so much confidence in my own strength. Especially with my VBAC, when I briefly lost resolve near the end, that incredible doula/woman/mom knew I could do it…so I did. I totally did it. She is one of the most important strangers to grace my life - and I’ve decided that’s exactly what I want to be for others.
I’d love to be there for you, on your miracle day of metamorphosis, bolstering your confidence in your voice and strength, helping you move and position your body for shorter labor, supporting your sense of safety and agency, witnessing your incredible power, and helping you write your story.
I’ll help you ride the wild waves of birth
I’m also trained as an Orgasmic Birth Practitioner, by the legendary doula Debra Pascali-Bonaro.
“Orgasmic Birth?!?” you say?
Yes. Sounds FASCINATING, doesn’t it?
“Sounds IMPOSSIBLE!” you say?
Well, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about the wild waves of birth.
The wild waves of birth
Birth can be transformative, empowering, an altered state, a fully-embodied surrender, an unprecedented experience at the intersection of pain and pleasure and effort and reward. If you experience labor, the surging, wild waves that run through your body are as wondrous as they are intense.
Some want to experience it all, others are curious but scared, and all just want what’s best for their babies. Sometimes your baby has needs that do not align with your hopes, and other times everything flows according to plan.
In this day and age and especially in this country, the experience of birth is almost exclusively depicted or spoken about as something to fear - a pathology or emergency waiting to happen. Sometimes emergencies do happen (and we are lucky to have skilled obstetric surgeons and anesthesiologists and other amazing medical staff for when they do!). But birth doesn’t have to be approached that way, and the overwhelming majority of births don’t unfold (or have to unfold) that way.
More and more research is documenting how too often maternal health care is not evidence-based care (even at highly-resourced hospitals), and how historical norms and profit imperatives sadly supercede what’s best for birthing people and their babies. But it’s not all bad and scary. Research is also emerging to document how birth is extraordinarily pleasurable for so many, and identify the conditions under which this tends to be true. The pleasure and satisfaction you might experience could be anything from mental and emotional to physical and sexual (yes, that actually happens for some!).
For me, being a doula who promotes the idea of Orgasmic Birth means I believe in a birthing person’s power to meet the intensity of the transformation and derive immense satisfaction from it. I see birth as a unparalleled opportunity to experience a total surrender to something primal and sacred — to embody the epic wildness of it all.
Satisfaction and pleasure are not about performance and pleasure doesn't have to involve an orgasm. It is a positive state of your nervous system. It is also a learned state, so pleasure is something we must practice in our daily lives. I’ll encourage you throughout your pregnancy to practice daily pleasures however simple they might be!
Satisfaction and pleasure should not be a luxuries in pregnancy and birth. They are not some impossible goals, they are feedback, they are information. They are feelings of safety and self-love. They helps you open up on every possible level.
The oxytocin, hormones, and endorphins surging through you during labor and birth are the same ones coursing through you during the most intensely pleasurable sexual experiences of your life. We’re (hopefully) not afraid of a body-shaking orgasm; we want to surrender to the wild waves of pleasure that surge through us. It refreshes us. It flushes us with power and relief and makes us smile. We feel SATISFIED.
All those same body parts and biochemical processes are at work during physiologic (unmedicated) labor. And more often than not, there are no evidence-based medical reasons to interfere with these processes.
Say you opt to approach birth with the mindset that the natural biochemical feedback loops between you and your baby might all align? That you might not want or need to induce with pitocin? Or you might not want or need an epidural for some or all of your labor?
What might you experience?
Even if just for a while - even if you opt out at some point for any number of elective or necessary reasons?
What happens…
…when we surrender to the wild body-shaking waves of labor?
…when we trust this extraordinary process as something we are built to do?
…when we embody these wild waves as part of our power and invite our surges to bring forth our babies?
We experience the altered state that is labor and birth. We embrace the power of our bodies and our metamorphosis. We open the door for positively intense and intensely positive satisfaction.
We might even transform ourselves and the narratives we create - even if our births don’t unfold exactly as we plan, and even if we choose or require interventions that shift the experience.
“At its core, Orgasmic Birth recognizes birth as a full-spectrum human experience—one that can include pain and pleasure, intensity and bliss, vulnerability and empowerment, challenge and joy. What “orgasmic” means is defined by each person for themselves, based on their body, values, desires, and sense of safety. For some, it may involve pleasurable, euphoric, or expansive sensations; for others, it may simply mean feeling deeply connected, supported, and embodied.
Pain and pleasure can coexist. Intense experiences can activate overlapping neurological pathways of discomfort, release, relief, and euphoria—physiological responses to rhythm, pressure, safety, and surrender.
Ultimately, Orgasmic Birth is less about a specific sensation and more about reclaiming agency and expanding the story of birth. It makes room for the sacred and the sensual without denying the rawness and intensity of childbirth—and affirms that birth is allowed to be more than one thing at once.”