A Doula Is Born.
Some moments are too sweet not to remember. As I was looking through old photos recently, I found these treasures: my mom resting beside me after feeding, and my dad marveling at how tiny I was in his hands. These images remind me how meaningful those early moments of connection truly are. These moments in time also are a testament to my why as a doula. There are many roots to my passion for women’s health, birth, postpartum, and caring for the maternal-infant dyad - yet they started with my birth.
Growing up I required my mom to tell me a bedtime story each night or sing me lullabies. My favorite story however was my own birth story, and occasionally my brothers. To this day I still ask to hear my birth story from my own mother’s words, she remembers it and tells it the same way she always does. Later before my first doula training, my trainer Ann Pollack prompted us to ask the oldest woman in our lives their birth stories. So I went to ask my paternal grandmother, a woman extremely special to me, and her stories gave me chills - after 50-plus years she remembered it all clearly. These stories captivated me as a child the same way they do today. I learned firsthand how most woman the stories of birth are engraved perfectly into their mind.
As a child, I was baby-obsessed! I had all the baby dolls with their fake strollers and fake bottles that I could manage to take care of, as well as a child could for their fake babies. The first birth I ever saw was sitting with my dolls watching TLC on my grandma’s TV. I remember the expecting parent got an epidural in the show and the baby’s first cry silenced the room in awe. After watching the scene I ran out to my mother in the kitchen and asked how badly it hurt to give birth and how badly it hurt to get an epidural. Her response was a tap on my back and telling me “Like that. After the baby is born you forget what it felt like”. Part of me knew this was a dulled version of the reality but it was a response I would accept for my age, as it still seemed quite interesting.
When I entered my teen years the topic of women’s reproductive health came to the stage of my mind and lived experience. I dealt with heavy, long, painful periods that caused me to miss school days and feel like my body was against me. I saw many providers to see what was wrong, curious if I had endometriosis or any other condition that would possibly be the cause. I never got answers but I did get their solution - birth control. I started on the lowest dosage and over the next year ended up on the highest level of estrogen and progesterone they could ship to California pharmacies from out of state. Intuitively I felt it wasn’t for me, leaving doctors’ offices crying, and the feeling of my body working against me growing stronger. The pills never seemed to help.
At 16 years old I began to do my research. I knew I would maybe never have an answer as to why, but I could at least learn how birth control worked and about my health as a soon-to-be grown woman. Meanwhile, the birth control began to take a toll on my mental health. A mix of this research and wishing for the anxiety and sadness I knew birth control brought me led me to discover how hard it is for women to be heard. I thought providers and support groups listened to women before without second-guessing their intuition. But I discovered this was far from the truth and the reality of women’s health history. I took my new knowledge and determined I would have to advocate for myself by making choices I knew were best for myself and my body. I soon quit taking my birth control cold turkey. Miraculously my periods became manageable and my mental health improved - I felt like myself again and I knew myself on a deeper level. I found that there was power in knowledge. The more you learn about the evidence out there, the more able you are to make informed decisions based on what you know, and the result is feeling confident and in control of your autonomy.
Between my childhood and teen years, I found joy in helping take care of my two sweet baby sisters and all my, many baby cousins. I was even there while my stepmom labored for my baby sister, watching the contractions be printed from the machine I still wish my two sisters could be babies just a little longer, it’s so fun to be a big sister especially when they are little! If I wasn’t babysitting or visiting them I wanted to babysit for anyone who would need it. I helped family friends as a “mother helper” when I was 12, babysat around the neighborhood as soon as I got my license, and later down the road worked as a nanny and even at a daycare for some time. While in high school I took child development classes at Palomar Community College just because it was something I wanted to learn more about and have in my toolbox down the road. I loved being able to help feed, entertain, and watch these little ones grow from babies to toddlers. It never stopped feeling short of a miracle how smart and resilient infants were.
When babysitting my sisters or driving to babysit for another family I often listened to podcasts. These podcasts gave me rich information in the same way that my classes at Community College did. I loved listening to birth podcasts from any channel I could find that talked about motherhood, postpartum, or birth. But my favorite podcast was not birth-related, instead, it was a recap podcast for the show The Bachelor called Chatty Broads. One of the host and bachelor alumni herself, Bekah Martinez had just become a second-time mother and shared her birth story on the podcast. This is where I learned what a doula was.
Bekah had a second home birth, with her partner, a midwife, and a doula present. She told about how her doula encouraged her, held her hand, and made her feel safe and empowered in her birth space. Then after the baby was born was still a calm, supportive presence. Immediately after listening, I watched the Youtube version to see what this “doula person” was doing. And as soon as that was over I googled “What is a doula?”, and down the doula rabbit hole I went! I was amazed! I had just discovered you could work around little precious babies, support expecting families through a sacred time in their lives, AND need a solid education on all matters about the maternal-infant dyad! Just like that, the dream job illuminated itself to me.
It wasn’t until my high school years came to an end I decided that being a doula was the definite route I would take. But as the options racked my brain being a doula was the constant role I kept coming back to. From there I enrolled in a DONA birth doula training for the summer after graduation. From there DONA Breastfeeding Education for Doulas and DONA Postpartum Doula Training followed. I am still in school at UCSD and Community with goals to become a Location Professional shortly. I know I will never be done learning, especially when it comes to learning how to better support families!
After my training, I asked family and friends who were pregnant if I could attend their birth. Eventually one gracefully said yes, and I was thrilled. From there I also became a part of Operation Doula to offer compensation-free doula support to military families. Eventually, private birth clients started to pop up in my calendar, keeping me busy. Each birth I prepped for with families and attended I learned so much more than I ever expected. After each delivery, I smiled endlessly at just how amazing each mom did, how sweet every baby was, and how proud I was of the family as a whole! My knowledge in terms of reproductive health, women’s health, advocacy tools, the unfolding of birth, and the journey of postpartum has been built on books, evidence-based research, my own experiences as a doula, doula training, and still plenty of podcasts.
Whenever I tell my mom I am or am about to go attend a birth I can hear the excitement in her voice when she senses an opportunity to remind me of my birth. Every prenatal meeting where I pull out my resources on self-advocacy and informed decision making I feel the importance of sharing such knowledge to the same weight I felt discovering it as a teen. Each postpartum meeting and client I think back to all the babies I watched grow up, and think about how loved each little one is. They likely won’t remember those who helped support their parents or helped care for them, but pray that they remember the feeling of love surrounding them since birth. There is not a birth, postpartum, client, family, or baby that doesn’t hold a dear place in my heart.
For the last 2 years I have stayed ALWAYS ready and excited for the next time I will go doula. Bags are always packed in my trunk, books are always next to my bed, and my phone is always with its ringer on for the next client text. The joy and contentment I feel in the work I do is hard to put into words. It is a natural high, an adrenaline rush, and pure happiness to get to do something so important to me. I believe I was meant to be a doula, ever since I was 5 pounds laying in my parent’s bed in baby bliss. I guess you could say when I was born, a future doula was also born that day.
