The Making Of A Doula!

This blog is super long, but I’m hoping it will help some of those newer doulas out there! I often get asked how I decided to become a doula, or what helped and hurt along the way. Below I dig into a little bit of that!

I’ve always been a helper. In junior high when all the other kids were dreaming of being teachers, pilots, superstars and hockey players— I was the little nerd in the corner reading Lurlene McDaniel books about teenagers in heartbreaking situations and soaking up each page. By the age of about 12 I knew I wanted to be a Clinical Psychologist. One track mind all through high school, and I entered University well on the way to my goal.

For three years I worked my butt off on Psychology courses, working with an advisor and tunnel vision finishing one semester after another. And then I felt stuck. As I was growing up I was realizing that I didn’t want to work in an office every day. I wanted a family. I wanted to be present for them. I wanted to be surrounded by joy. Hard work, and struggle, yes— but joy through all that.

In the meantime, a friend had recently been sharing a lot about her journey through her births and motherhood. I heard this weird term- a doula. I started googling and thinking maybe... maybe *this* is where my learning has been leading me. The more research I did, the more I felt my soul on fire. It was everything I wanted- work with women, with families, on these gruelling, important, life changing days. It was honouring the space holding work I’d been studying for the past years, but combining it with what was quickly becoming a new passion— birth and the mothering year.

Oops! Tunnel vision- gone. Focus- gone. Singular purpose in life- gone.

Suddenly I was presented with another way of helping people— one also within my reach and that included my other love— Children. I would say it was decision time, but to be honest, the more I deep dived into what it meant to be a doula, the more obvious my choice became! I fell in love with this new career that gave me the option to reach people at their most vulnerable point, to meet them there, sit with them, and help them make positive moments out of what can otherwise be an overwhelming mess!

Very quickly I began to shift course. I finished out my courses for the year and signed up for a doula training workshop. It was pure Kismet that DONA International had a workshop coming to Winnipeg (at that point, a very rare occurance) in just a few weeks. I signed up, purchased books, and was SO excited and nervous to walk through those doors when the weekend finally came.

It was everything I wanted and more. We sat there with other like minded women, listening to Wailin Jenny’s, filling our cups and learning and growing. I walked out of there and knew I had made the right choice.

Over the next few years as I continued to attend courses and soak up knowledge, I knew I’d made the right choice, and that was confirmed in 2008 when I attended my first birth. It was literally life changing. Watching that mom powerhouse her way through what could have been a difficult birth was so inspiring, and I knew nothing could tear me away now.

That’s not to say that it was easy! DONA provided me with the support foundation that I needed- I felt confident in my abilities to support someone through pregnancy and birth. I was attuned, informed, empathetic. I had ideas. This whole thing would fall into my lap, right?

Ok, maybe not. DONA had left out the part about how I was supposed to make a successful business. For the next almost eight years I meandered the path of the doula. I finished up my degree that had been tossed to the side, focusing on Women’s studies, eating disorders, advanced behavior modification. I got married. I took on births whenever I can, keeping my foot in the door so to speak, and then pausing to have my own babes. Becoming a mom and experiencing birth myself for the first time gave me a new outlook on labour and birth, and added a richness to the empathy and experience I can share with my clients. 

My first newborn photos, from one of the first births I attended way back in 2008. We’ve come a long way!

Look, it’s baby Jenine at University graduation!

Finally in 2015 I took another doula training course through MACFE to refresh my skills. That put me in touch with some amazing doula sisters that made all the difference as I continued to forge my path forwards. I started making business plans.

After the birth of my third (and last) babe, it was finally time to turn my attention full time to birth work. This extra time while he grew and became old enough to leave for a long birth ended up being such a blessing- I took more classes, researched business, joined groups of other successful doulas and I refined the doula I wanted to be.

When I started doula training, most doulas seemed to have a deepset belief that “Natural Birth” was the end goal for everyone. Our job was to help women get there. The more I learned, the more I realized that didn’t work for every birther. Not everyone wanted, or could have, an unmedicated, undisturbed birth. That they could have births that were highly medicalized, heavily planned, even cesareans— and still at the end of the day feel like it was an empowering, awe-inspiring experience. That was the doula I wanted to be- the one that chased that end goal- not one that judged everything against how “natural” it had been.

Eventually Embrace Birth Services was born, and I truly can’t describe how lucky I feel to be here, to have found a way to combine my love of helping people with my passion for birth and motherhood. To sit with these amazing families on the most important days of their lives. For some of them to go to hell and back, and come through it with tears of joy, not despair. I’ve seen both first and secondhand the difference a doula makes, and I’m just so grateful to have found my place.