Meet Your Team
Karen and Katie are a mother and daughter team dedicated to helping women discover empowerment through pregnancy and birth. Karen Carola, Director of Midwifery for Ocean Gynecological and Obstetrical Associates has been a Certified Nurse Midwife for over 35 years and has delivered more than 3,500 babies. She strongly believes that prenatal yoga gives women the support they need to fully experience and enjoy their pregnancies. After witnessing the powerful effects of prenatal yoga on her patients, she became certified to teach and brings her immense knowledge into all facets of her classes. Katie Thompson has been a Certified Yoga Instructor for 18 years. Katie is a Tarot Intuitive and offers magical moon circles and moon yoga classes. She is dedicated to teaching women how to honor their personal rhythms and the cycles and rhythms of the moon. She has developed her own Fear Release rituals designed to help women move through some of the fear that holds them back from fully embodying their true power.
Katie Thompson
Katie fell in love with yoga over 20 years ago. Having studied classical ballet from a young age, she has always been inspired by movement. At the age of 13, she became a Reiki practitioner, which sparked her interest in energy and healing; and through yoga, she found the beautiful combination of movement and healing.
After completing her BA in Philosophy, she went to Kripalu Yoga Center in MA in 2005 to earn her 200-hour yoga instructor certification. She has since returned to Kripalu to work in their marketing department and to assist in their teacher trainings.
Katie teaches both vinyasa flow and prenatal yoga classes. Vinyasa translates to "movement linked with breath." In a vinyasa flow class, you will move through a series of yoga poses designed to build heat in the body. Katie's vinyasa classes are full of high energy, creative flow sequences with solid alignment cues and lots of pranayama (breathwork). Her prenatal classes are designed to offer pregnant women ways to safely enjoy moving their ever-changing bodies, while incorporating breathing techniques for labor and birth.
In her free time, Katie enjoys swimming, biking, and reading tarot with her cat, Freya.
Karen Carola
Karen Carola, BSN, MSN, CNM, RYT-500 hr is a Certified Nurse Midwife with over 35 years of experience. She graduated from Columbia University with a Masters of Science in Midwifery in 1986 and has since helped more than 3,500 women birth their babies. Karen is the Director of Midwifery for Ocean Gynecological and Obstetrical Association at Community Medical Center in Toms River, NJ. With the recent increase in cesarean section rate, Karen sought more positive methods to help her patients. She became certified to teach yoga to give women the support they need to fully embrace the power of pregnancy and birth.
Karen holds a 200- hour yoga instructor certification with Laurie Greene at Yoganine, a 500 -hour yoga instructor certification with Yogaworks, a prenatal certification with Jacqui Reynolds at Kripalu Center for Health and Healing, and a prenatal immersion with Sue Elkind at Dig Yoga. Karen's classes emphasize the importance of good alignment, building strength, focusing on breathwork and tuning in to your intuition.
An avid runner, Karen has completed 20 marathons. She enjoys exercise, yoga, and studying nutrition.
Dr. Emily Bessemer
Dr. Emily Bessemer, PT, DRT, PRPC, CLT-LANA, ERYT-200 is a manual physical therapist with specialties in pelvic health, cancer rehabilitation, chronic pain management, lymphedema, craniosacral, and energy work. Her practice is called EmBodied Physical Therapy where she integrates yoga, holistic care, energy work and pelvic floor physical therapy together to provide the best care for the patient.
Emily graduated in 2014 from Stockton University, in New Jersey, with her doctorate in physical therapy. She has experience working in women’s, men’s, and transgender pelvic health, and has spent most of her career working with these populations. (For further detail about what pelvic health entails click here for our article on What is Pelvic Health?)
Emily has also advanced her studies in Arvigo Mayan abdominal massage, craniosacral therapies, and visceral mobilization. She has a passion for doing hands-on work to bring healing and alignment to the body while integrating energy work, yoga, and reiki practices to best allow the body to experience restoration, healing, and recovery. She has advanced studies in women’s hormonal health and, in 2015, completed her Women’s Holistic Health Coaching Certification through the Institute of Integrative Women’s Health, with a focus on hormone balancing.
Emily uses all of the skills she’s gained from her years in clinical practice and holistic studies for an integrative view of the body and promotes recovery from injury, discomfort, or even the slightest irritation.
Emily teaches as an adjunct professor, at Georgian Court University, in the Integrative Health Department. She also teaches vinyasa-style and prenatal yoga classes and is a BirthFit Professional. In addition, Emily is a Holy Fire Reiki master teacher and runs trainings for the energetic empowerment of women.
In her free time, she likes to exercise, read more books than one can count, hang out with her husband Mike, and snuggle her two adorable cats— Luna and Rosie.