Why I wanted to be a Doulaing The Doula Doula
By Shelby Gotcher, Certification Trainee, Sweetwater, Texas
I decided I wanted to change my career, but I actually didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I went through multiple different things. I took a bunch of career tests, and of course, on those “doula” doesn’t come up. It’s not gonna tell you you should become a doula based on your personality, even though you kind of should if you’re the right type of person. But I had a birth worker friend ask me if I’d considered being a doula. And I was like, a, a do what? <laugh>, you know, I had no idea what it was and what she explained it to me. I looked at multiple different programs. I looked at DONA, I looked at CAPPA, I looked at Childbirth International, and then I, somehow the algorithm gods gave me Doulaing The Doula.
Up until researching doulas, I didn’t realize a lot about birth statistics and minorities. One day I plan to have another kid, and if I do, it will actually be a half black child. And if I have a black daughter one day, that could mean that my daughter’s at more risk based on the color of her skin. And once I realized how adamant that was and then how much you put into the program to like, bring, not only just bring that to light, but like make it inclusive, I just loved that it was centered around that. And the program is very personable. So, so it really all kind of pulled together everything I was wanting to do, everything I was kinda wanting to tackle, but I, I didn’t know it until I knew it. Mm-hmm.
Doulaing is something that I can do where I know I’m helping someone, because in my current career, I feel like I’m harming more people than helping them. And it’s centered around birth, which is something I’ve always, always had a thing for. Um, I just didn’t really know where I fit until I really found what a doula is and how they’re really more there for not, not to catch the baby, but to hold the mother and to, to ensure their wellness. Because that’s something that even when I had my daughters, I really lacked. I felt like I could have used more of, I could have used a doula and I didn’t know it at the time ’cause I didn’t, didn’t know what they were. So I want to be what I needed.
What would I say to potential future doulas? Decide what about birth work is really most important to you. Remember that whichever program you pick is going to be the essence of, um, how you approach birth. And if you’re considering Doulaing The Doula, I would really, really, really highly recommend it because it, it really, it forces you into, into conversations that you wouldn’t necessarily have if you just bought an online course and did it yourself. And then the, the relationships that I actually built throughout my training, I, I still follow the people on Facebook and I like to watch them grow. And I, I still feel like Amy has a little community of people online that you can still reach out to and you don’t just feel like you took your training and you’re out on your own. Don’t be afraid to network networking is so important. Great. There’s a, I guess there’s a lot I could say. Yeah. Yeah. <laugh>.
