We recently connected with Shuquia Prentice-Gonsalves and have shared our conversation below.

Shuquia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We believe kindness is contagious and so we’d love for you to share with us and our audience about the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

As I reflect on my life it hasn’t always been rainbows and butterflies. I do believe that God put me places and situations so I can be the person I am today .
The nicest thing that someone has ever done for me is teaching what love was .
Back in 2018 I was homeless , sleeping in a friends living room . I had no car and all the money I made went to paying for my spot on the couch. One night I was stranded at work and I called my best friends parents for a ride , with no hesitation they got in their car and came and got me . A couple weeks later I got a text message for them saying they wanted to meet with me to discuss something. I’m going to lie to you , I was so scared and I hadn’t done anything wrong . As my anxiety built and day came I sat across from them at kekes breakfast and they told me that they were gonna give me a place to live . I moved in a month later . I had no job , no money , no hope . They took me in , brought me new clothes , paid my bills , helped me get closer to God , and poured unconditional love into me .
A month later I got my first big girl job at a pharmacy. I worked so hard . I bought my first car . The closer I became to God I found myself and what I truly loved to do . I found my purpose and I been chasing it ever since . Super grateful for my adoptive parents. The love they provided me in such a short time molded me into this amazing person I am today .

Shuquia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hello guys my name is Shuquia Prentice-Gonsalves. I am 27 I was born and raised in the US Virgin Islands. I moved to Florida when I was 10 years old and I am a birth in postpartum Doula in the Orlando Florida. I have been doing Birth work for about three going on four years. I started birth work after I miscarried I didn’t like the education and the treatment I received in the hospital after I miscarried I did a lot of research, and I decided that I wanted to educate women and the best way to educate women to start was to become a Doula. I provide breast-feeding, knowledge and support. I do placenta encapsulation’s. I do comfort, measure, training, childbirth education, classes, prenatal, stretching’s, and comfort measures massages, and just overall teach. I like to call myself miss make it happen or miss fix it. Sometimes I have clients that come to me with problems and I kind of just fix it or make it happen. There is no specific thing that I do for my clients besides, you know, make them feel safe and heard and loved him. There’s a lot in so much that you can do with those three terms. In all honesty, I don’t feel like I am set apart from others. I don’t see myself as in competition with others so I don’t see that I’m set apart, but if you would like to ask, what makes me different is the fact that I am myself no one is me. No one provides the energy I provide nobody does what I do like we do the same thing, but no one does it the way I do it and I don’t do it the way others do it . What am I most proud of is the fact that I have never given up owning a business and being a Birth worker is hard work it is draining. It is tiring. Sometimes you fall. Sometimes you mess up. Sometimes you get a bad review sometimes people don’t see your vision for the way that you want it to be seen. You get very very exhausted, and I’m just super proud of myself that I never gave up on myself and my vision. I honestly would just like people to know that I am human. I am not perfect and think sometimes the hard things become sometimes unmanageable and I’m just not perfect that’s all.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I have so many stories that demonstrate my resilience, but I do feel like this one is my favorite one. I consider myself to be an overall strong person, but I no longer like the word strong. My life has not always been or still isn’t most days rainbows and butterflies. I have struggled with self-confidence, and feeling like I can actually do things and accomplish things, and when I did accomplish things, I always felt like I was a little behind. My journey to Birth work started when I lost my kids I decided to go into Birth work because I feel like women aren’t educated when it comes to their bodies, their rights and responsibilities, and just overall what pregnancy is and what it should look like when I first started my journey to Midwifery I didn’t know what school I wanted to go to. I heard so much controversy on many different schools and I just was having a very hard time deciding where I wanted to Go, I chose that I was going to start at Southwest Tech, which is a School in Wisconsin and I got accepted .I did all the paperwork I did all the test that were needed to get into the program before the fall semester started. I received an email basically, stating that Florida students would either have to relocate states or they wouldn’t be able to start the program. This truly broke my heart, because I spent a lot of time and money and energy preparing to start school that semester. I found out about another program that was located in Boca Raton, and one of the midwives there literally pull me under her wing and was helping me get into that program. I started that program. I made a dedication of driving two days out of the week to go to school and because this program is not a federally funded program I would’ve had to pay out-of-pocket and it was not something that I could afford at the time and it did a big big damage on my mental health, I finally decided to apply to the school in Gainesville Florida. I’ve got to the interview process and after the interview process it takes about a month for them to make decisions on who is excepted and who is not excepted that whole month that caused me so much turmoil and anxiety, because if I didn’t get accepted into this program, I felt like I was going to die Fast forward a month. I received an email letting me know that I was excepted. I was at Busch Gardens with some friends I boo-hoo, cried. When I say, cried, I mean wept. Like ugly cries not you know, eyes puffy, cried, I say, the story is my favorite, because in the past , I would’ve never kept trying. I would’ve been like it. I guess it’s not for me and I would’ve given up but because I love both so much and because I feel like there’s so much more that I can do for women and children I kept going every obstacle that came about I conquered, and now I am in a program. I’m doing well in my classes, and I am learning so much. I am super proud of myself, and I feel like I am no longer considered strong. I am considered resilient, because no matter what is thrown at me I will continue to fight for what I believe in and what I need and what I want.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I believe the hardest part about growing up ,healing, becoming the best version of yourself is unlearning. I wouldn’t consider this a lesson, but I do believe that it is something that should be shared because I feel like a lot of people struggle with this . something I had to unlearn was how I felt about myself, and my abilities to succeed and learning that you are NOT the controller of your faith is the hardest thing I had to do to become who I am today . growing up I was brought up in the church. in church. We are taught that your faith is controlled by God. Your story is written you know whatever you go through in life is because you had to go through it to get where you need to be in someways I still find that to be true, but in other ways, I do feel like you are in control of what your faith is and what your story is , I made the decision to take control of my life, and in order to take control of your life you have to forget, or like you said, unlearn things that you were taught to believe, and sometimes the things that we were taught to believe aren’t very good for us. I am learned not to put faith in Believing that my discomfort was based off God but taking responsibility in my discomfort because sometimes we put ourselves in positions to be uncomfortable when I stopped making myself uncomfortable and putting in the work and time that was needed to become who I am I stop feeling uncomfortable? I started to grow as a person I started to actually learn the lessons that I kept repeating over the years of being uncomfortable .

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cateringtothemoon.com
• Instagram: @studentmidwifequia_