Why I am a doula and why I can’t help it

Whether I’m in a consultation with a potential client or just telling someone what my job is, I’m often met with the “why” question. Why did I become a doula? How did I find my way into this work?

My standard go-to answer is the same as what’s on the “About” page of my site: I always knew I wanted to do something pregnancy-/newborn-/birth-related but hadn’t found exactly what called to me. My brother and sister-in-law used a doula for the birth of their daughter and my brother was the one who suggested it to me as something worth exploring. I found myself (like many of you) Googling “midwife vs. doula” to figure out the differences. I learned how a doula is there specifically for the person giving birth and I was hooked.

But here’s the thing: it’s deeper than that.

It’s who I am at my core.

Let me share a lil story from this morning.

My husband and I recently adopted a second cat, Izzy. I took him to the vet this morning for his new kitty vaccine booster. While sitting in the waiting room, a woman walked in to retrieve her pets’ cremated remains from the front desk. It was such a quick interaction—the front desk support person stepped into an adjoining room and returned with a navy gift bag that she handed over with a disconnected and banal “here you go.”

As she was stepping out, she held the door open for an excited white goldendoodle-y pup, leading her family inside. An older man and woman came in first, followed by their 20- or 30-something year old daughter. Sweet little pup stepped over to sniff me but her dad pulled the leash back as they stepped together into the corner of the room. I smiled at the dog first, then looked up to see that her people had bleak expressions on their faces. The daughter had silent tears streaming down her face that she attempted to wipe away with her long sleeves while her mom knelt down to hug the dog and run her fingers through its fur. They were here to say goodbye.

I found myself immediately tearing up from across the room, witnessing these people in their grief preparing for such a gut-wrenching day. Sweet pup was wagging her tail, sniffing the walls, soaking in the love from her family, and—I swear—smiling. She was genuinely happy and so unaware of what was coming.

The vet staff quickly escorted them to a room and I felt my eyes continue to swell. I sat, sniffling and biting my tongue, trying to keep from crying out loud. The vet tech returned, I checked out, and went straight back to my car where I immediately fell apart. Big, ugly sobs in the parking lot for a dog that I know nothing about, the remains of a pet I know even less about, and the people who ache for them.

I practiced some intentional deep breathing, soothing myself enough to call my mom. As soon as I started speaking to her, I broke down all over again. My mom comforted me and said, “you feel things deeply; it’s just the kind of heart you have.”

I pulled myself together yet again, enough to discuss a Costco shopping trip, and ended the call.

I made it the seven minutes home, sat down to take some quiet breaths, and took this photo to send to my husband.

I reflected on my mom’s words and what I know to be true: I feel things deeply. I am sensitive, empathetic, commiserative—any other number of adjectives to say I feel things with people.

I have been this way my entire life because it’s part of who I am and part of what makes me, me. It’s not a chosen or learned behavior; it’s sprinkled throughout whatever infinitesimally tiny bits of essence make up a soul.

This is where it clicked—this is why I am a doula.

I am a doula because it’s who I am as a human.

I feel alongside people. I feel my heart, this abstract sense of my heart, expanding to blanket people who are going through…things. Life. Emotions. I know as a social norm I couldn’t go hug that family who is saying goodbye to their dog, but my heart, my warmth, my emotions, my soul were all wrapped in a comforting embrace around them. It’s nothing spoken or physical or outwardly perceptible. It’s protective and warm and safe-keeping.

It’s holding space.

It’s encircling and embracing and surrounding them from afar with a sense of comfort that supports their emotions. It’s involuntarily wrapping myself around them in a private cocoon so they can process as they need to.

There is more to holding space during a labor and birth, but the essence is the same. And while there are ways to learn more about “holding space” and what that looks like as a doula, there is also an innateness to it that I couldn’t separate myself from if the future of the human race depended on it. (Sorry, guys.)

This right here is why doula work speaks to me. It’s not because I enjoy birth (I do), or helping people (I do), or bearing witness to new life entering the world (I do). It’s because this is a role that finally fits what I already know to be true about myself. That sense of having a word on the tip of your tongue for hours and hours, well past the time when you needed to use it, only to have it finally come screaming to mind while in the middle of chopping carrots for dinner. That’s what it feels like for me to say I’m a doula. That sense of “aha” and “THAT’s it, right there.”

I am a doula by trade, yes, but I am also a doula as a personality type. I am a doula in some grand irrevocable sense of self. I am a doula by spirit. I am a doula by soul. I am a doula.