Celebrating 500 Hours of Birth, Postpartum, and Sibling Doula Services

I am so excited to finally sit down and break ground on Madam Doula's blog page. My plan is to make this place a reflection of my work, so a hub of pregnancy, birth and postpartum related information. That said this post will veer a little bit from my goal, to stop and celebrate my journey in establishing Madam Doula.

A little about how my journey began:

About a year ago I was really unhappy with my professional life. I'd made it through four semesters of graduate school and was facing at least another two. I felt like I was in between a rock and a hard place. I didn't want to leave graduate school, because in my practical mind that meant I had wasted a lot of time and money. Yet, I knew that teaching high school history wasn't for me. My wonderful husband, John, helped me understand the concept of a "sunk cost" and encouraged me to follow my dreams. With that push I decided to follow my love for birth work and after months of dragging my feet I opened Madam Doula, LLC.

What lead me to birth work?

Back in high school I spent a lot of time with my cousins and their mother (my aunt) who would share birth stories with us. To me, those stories were mesmerizing so I did a little research about birth. I quickly found information on midwives but didn't feel that was for me. From there I somehow found the word "doula" and even went to Reston Public Library to check out books from DONA's (Doula's of North America's) reading list. At a certain point I decided that no one would take me seriously as a 15 year old doula. So I left that dream behind only to rediscover it ten years down the road.

Why celebrate 500 hours?

While I would describe myself as an eternal optimist I was very concerned about starting a small business. The pandemic didn't help those concerns. I spent months doing double duty, splitting time between my day job and my small business. At a certain point I realized I couldn't continue wearing two hats, quit my job, and prepared to spend months at my computer waiting for clients.

I was so blessed that everything lined up and I was able to start working with clients immediately. While it's been a struggle to find clients, and continues to be, I have been able to stay busy enough to complete 500 hours of services provided. As a doula in my first year of practice and a new small business in the midst of a pandemic these 500 hours have allowed me to continue to believe in my dream. They've also made it possible for me to reinvest in myself.

What's next?

Hopefully another 500 hours and ending my first year, in business, strong. I will be completing my birth doula certification, shortly. Then next month, I will hopefully complete a Neonatal Resuscitation Certification and then a Spinning Babies Course, in June. I am also working on a couple other projects including a series of talks called Empower Hour with Amy Tanzillo, to help expecting mothers navigate breastfeeding and postpartum. I can't wait to see what new opportunities the next few months will bring and meeting as many inspiring new mamas, as possible!

Thanks for reading! Please like, follow, and don't hesitate to reach out if you're interested in learning more about my doula services. All consultations are free with no obligations.