For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to work with pregnant women and babies. When someone would ask me what I wanted to be, I would reply “a baby nurse” or “a baby doctor”. When I became pregnant with my son 5 years ago, my life changed completely. Although I had always planned to breastfeed, I now found myself drawn to a more natural lifestyle, including birthing.
As my long term goal, I aspire to be a midwife or monitrice (midwife’s assistant). However, as the mother of two young children (4 years and 7 months), I feel that my first priority is to my family. Hoping to build networks and connections in the birthing community that will help me with my long term goal of midwifery, I felt that becoming a certified doula was the next logical step.
Previously, I had always found a reason to not go ahead with my certification. Before children, it was because I thought people wouldn’t take me seriously because I was too young and had never had children myself. After my son (an unexpected cesarean), my excuse was that people wouldn’t want to hire me since I had never had a natural birth.
I had my daughter in December after 57.5 hours of active labor. It was a planned home birth after cesarean but we ended up transferring to the local hospital after 51 hours where I subsequently had her vaginally (though with some interventions such as internal fetal monitoring).
My third child- another daughter- was born after 26 hours of labor. She was welcomed at home with a midwife in attendance, surrounded by family.
I feel that I now have much to offer pregnant and laboring women and couples, as my own experiences range from cesarean birth to natural vaginal birth after cesarean to homebirth. I am currently training with Birth Arts International to become a certified labor doula.
As my long term goal, I aspire to be a midwife or monitrice (midwife’s assistant). However, as the mother of two young children (4 years and 7 months), I feel that my first priority is to my family. Hoping to build networks and connections in the birthing community that will help me with my long term goal of midwifery, I felt that becoming a certified doula was the next logical step.
Previously, I had always found a reason to not go ahead with my certification. Before children, it was because I thought people wouldn’t take me seriously because I was too young and had never had children myself. After my son (an unexpected cesarean), my excuse was that people wouldn’t want to hire me since I had never had a natural birth.
I had my daughter in December after 57.5 hours of active labor. It was a planned home birth after cesarean but we ended up transferring to the local hospital after 51 hours where I subsequently had her vaginally (though with some interventions such as internal fetal monitoring).
My third child- another daughter- was born after 26 hours of labor. She was welcomed at home with a midwife in attendance, surrounded by family.
I feel that I now have much to offer pregnant and laboring women and couples, as my own experiences range from cesarean birth to natural vaginal birth after cesarean to homebirth. I am currently training with Birth Arts International to become a certified labor doula.