Why I Stepped Away from Being a Birth Doula

Many of you that know me or have visited my website in the past may have noticed that something is missing from my service offerings. That’s because it is. I have officially removed all doula services from my offerings and replaced them with only childbirth education offerings.

First things first, I LOVED attending births! They gave me life and they gave me joy. I felt SO honored to be welcomed into such a sacred space.

But, while one pot was being filled attending births, another pot was desperately running on empty. My home life was falling apart. Not BECAUSE of my role as a birth doula, AT ALL. My home life was simply falling apart because that’s simply how things happen sometimes. Couples grow and become different people. Sometimes the people we become are no longer compatible with each other as a couple.

Births required a lot of logistics for me to handle childcare for the littles before, but nothing I was unwilling or unable to accommodate. It’s my dream to be a full time birth worker, and where there was a will, there was a way. Hell, I’m going to become a CPM one day, one way or another. That dream seems impossible, and it may only come into fruition once I reach heaven (God willing), but it will happen one way or another nonetheless.

This year when I became a single mother, I had to take a step back from many things and prioritize what I was able and unable to do. Living a life on call as a single mother already working a full-time job simply was unsustainable. Then, I unexpectedly fell pregnant with twins with a new partner shortly after transitioning into single motherhood (they're due June 7, 2023). This sealed the deal that I could no longer attend births for a very long time. Whether pregnant or breastfeeding, I cannot survive on coffee and a granola bar, long stretches without sleep in a bed, only to come home and be needed to be fully attentive to my children who will need me physically and emotionally once I come home—no matter how much I want to just stare at a wall and not exist for a few hours.

As a childbirth educator, I can live life more on my own terms, stick to a schedule, and have predictability—something so important and definitely a security blanket when you’re already a stretched out single mother.

This is not goodbye to attending births, but a see ya later. I plan on picking up midwifery years later, when I’m probably in my 50’s, and the kids are grown and I can fully focus on this dream. But for right now, I know a dream delayed (no matter how long delayed it may be) is not a dream denied. If life has taught me anything after earning my first college degree in my 30’s, it’s certainly that things happen in their own time, or on God’s time I should say. Here's to putting family first, and trusting the process.