Blog
Getting to Know Me!
Hi everyone and thank you for checking out Life Bringing Doula. I wanted to start off my blogs by sharing a little bit about me, what got me started as a doula, and why I choose the name I did.
To start, I went to college with the idea of becoming a police officer. It was what I wanted to do my whole life. While in college I had volunteer hours I needed to fill in order to graduate. I started volunteering at a pregnancy center where I met the loveliest of women. I started babysitting for one of the women I met there and formed a great connection with her. Her and her husband were extremely supportive of me as a police officer and continually encouraged me toward my dream.
After college graduation, I went down south to be near my now husband and started my dream job as a police officer. That path was showing it would not work out so I started questioning what I would do next. My whole life and a large portion of my education was devoted to my dream of being a cop.
I tried a couple different job in the meantime and quickly realized none of them were right for me. While in college I started my own seamstress side business and I considered getting back into that as I loved being my own boss. I did not have the same clientele where I was living which made my seamstress business less than successful. However, I still liked being my own boss. I quickly discovered I liked drawing and designing stickers. I got a tablet for Christmas and started learning how to use it for graphic design.
I heard the verse “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute” (Proverbs 31:8) several times in one week and that gave me an idea of what my first design could be. I wanted to exemplify that the unborn are those who cannot speak for themselves, that Christian’s needed to speak up for them. So I got started on my design. It was a huge hit. I determined I would give profit from each sale to a woman who found herself in a pregnancy where she felt no other choice but to abort the baby. I wanted to help women.
With this desire I continued to create several more stickers. Some with the creative help of others telling me what they thought would be good as a sticker, and some ideas just came to me. But I knew this couldn’t be my job and was only a mere hobby. But I still wanted to help women in pregnancy.
One of the jobs I had tried in the meantime was being a nanny. That job did not last long by choice, but by my husband getting relocated for his job. My husband and I moved to a small town and I had to leave the family I had been nannying for. Saying goodbye to everyone was hard but this family was one of the hardest goodbyes. I had grown very close with the mother and the little girls, and they meant the world to me. When we moved I realized that being a nanny was also helpful and I did not just have to work for a pregnancy center to help women in need.
I was on a long drive one day and praying about what I was going to do for a job. I had felt very helpless and useless. I felt like I had wasted my college education and that I was lazy because I had yet to find a job since moving. I was praying for guidance on what to do next. Minutes later I noticed a billboard on the highway that said “Doula” on it. My mind immediately flashed back to the family I used to babysit for in college; the mom was a doula.
I started researching what a doula did and texting the mom to learn more about what being a doula entailed. She was such a big encouragement for me to pursue being a doula. After some thought and prayer I signed up for doula certification courses. I felt it was a good way to still help moms during a huge part of their lives, and I felt it was where I was called to be.
While I have not figured out the details to this idea yet, my dream is to have a sponsor portion part of my job. I want to accept support from those willing and able to give in order to cover the cost of my services (sponsor) those unable to afford them. I have connected with a local pregnancy center and would love to have the support funds go towards servicing women that go there that find themselves alone, scared, or in need. This includes childbirth education classes such as breastfeeding, nutrition education, prenatal yoga, and my doula services.
Which brings me to the other topic of today’s blog: where my name came from. I had several different names picked out, some of which were already in use, and others that focused on too specific of an audience. I wanted to reach as many people as possible. Life Bringing Doula comes from the fact that all pregnant women are bringing a life into this world. I am just assisting them in that. There are also several different types of doula’s, including death doulas, to which I did not want to be confused with. With that being said, I do still offer my services to those who miscarry or have a stillbirth, although I pray none of my clients have to suffer that loss. I cannot take credit for my name alone, my husband was a huge help, and my cousin encompassed everything I was trying to say perfectly in my logo. Most of all I wanted a name that encompassed a core belief of mine: Life.
Thank you for your continued support in my new business and endeavors and I cannot wait to share more with you. If you would like to purchase any stickers, the store on my website with all my stickers I have designed is now up and running! Or if you would like a free consultation, have any questions, or just have something to say, feel free to reach out to me by my contacts page, email, or text. I look forward to where we will go together.
