As a little girl, I was fascinated with nature.
If you could peek into my past, you'd find a barefoot girl more comfortable when muddy, making mud villages, building treehouses, digging forts in the field, and crushing up flower petals to make perfume. I desired to be a nurse, or a doctor, when I grew up. My heart was always to help, to see a need, and to attempt to meet it. I have a deep love for the beauty of creation, how our bodies were perfectly designed by our Creator, and how plants and animals on this earth can be used to both fuel our bodies and provide healing.
I married the love of my life, Jonny, in 2018. We got pregnant soon after and were ecstatic. November could not come soon enough! Then, we lost our sweet baby a couple weeks later. We got pregnant again and, once again, lost that sweet baby around 11 weeks into the pregnancy, after landing in Germany, where we had moved. We were devastated to say the least.
The shock and trauma of our losses propelled me to research more about my body. I started learning about the endocrine system and the role it plays in regulating hormones. I started learning about plastics and microplastics being found in umbilical cords of newborn babies. I learned about toxic chemicals being added to everyday cosmetic products. We slowly started switching out products in our home.
Every new piece of clothing we purchased was either made of a natural fiber, or thrifted, so there was less toxic off-gassing. Each jar and bottle in our home was switched to glass. We switched to a clean ingredient shampoo and conditioner, and tossed our former bodywash and toiletry items. We got pregnant again a few months later and carried that baby for 18 blissful weeks. Around 17 weeks we found out our sweet baby no longer had a heartbeat. We grieved, we took bump pictures, and we waited at home to have the home birth I had dreamt of. On January 12, 2019, in the early morning, we delivered our sweet baby after a beautiful and bittersweet 4 hour labor. Perfectly formed, we held that baby in our hands and kissed that beautiful face, captured footprints, and took pictures. We buried our baby under a large tree in a nearby forest, naming our baby "Oaks" from my life passage Isaiah 61.
We got pregnant two months later with our daughter, Asher, and carried her to full term, with a beautiful home birth that December, 2019. In October, 2021, we had a wonderful, peaceful home birth with our son, Zayn. We now have two children, and cherish the moments because these are the days we have prayed for. Wild Oaks Apothecary was named after our sweet baby and the tree he was buried under. Our Wild Oaks, ushering us into a season of grief beyond imagination, and healing that flooded all the cracks and crevices where grief left its mark.
​My journey to motherhood has been bitter, it has been sweet, and it has been filled with research and lifestyle changes. The products you will find in my shop are carefully chosen and crafted by me, and are products I feel comfortable allowing in my home and using in and on my babies. They tell stories of the joys and sorrows found in life, and the ability to partner with God to bring beauty from ashes. Nothing is wasted.
With that in mind, my shop focuses on using the whole plant for medicine. I do not use essential oils, as they isolate parts of the plant rather than extracting from the plant as a whole, and I want to use allll the good parts of the plant, roots, stem, leaf, and flower, to craft medicine. The fresh herbs are ones I foraged and they are called "wildcrafted" as they are not certified organic, but rather grown in untouched areas, free from pesticides and herbicides, just as they were created. I chose fresh herbs for the tinctures to extract every bit of living goodness possible from the plant, and also to avoid toxic amounts of volatile oils which can occur if using dried plants to make a tincture. All alcohol used is 100-proof vodka unless otherwise stated.
The salves are crafted with as many local ingredients as I can use, and are formulated based on needs I have seen in my family, such as every day first aid, salves for rashes, and salve for splinters. The tallow products are made with local tallow that I rendered using a method that purifies it and leaves it a bright white and nearly odorless. You can learn more about where I source my tallow very soon!
Whew, you made it to the end. Thank you for being here and taking the time to browse my shop. I am honored you would trade your time to peruse my site. Here's to living life to the fullest, nourishing our bodies inside and out, and savoring the moments with the ones we love most.