snugglekitty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
snugglekitty) wrote2008-03-04 07:27 am
snugglekitty) wrote2008-03-04 07:27 am
another work question
Again from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clonetwin: "A follow up question - what compelled you to become a doula?"
"Compelled" is a great word here. Some of you have probably already heard this story (which technically I should have posted after I posted that question about books changing your life).
About three and a half or four years ago I read the memoir of an Alabama midwife, Onnie Lee Logan. (It's been published under two titles - Motherwit and Listen to me Good.) This amazing woman spent seventy years delivering babies in rural Alabama - a place where you have to drive three or four hours to get to the nearest hospital, and that's if you have a car. A place where doctors don't want to practice because the rewards are few and it's just so darned depressing. She served women of color almost exclusively, people who had almost no resources or education and would pay her in food if they could pay her at all. Many of them named their children after her.
I finished this book one morning at breakfast time.mrpet was sitting with me. I put the book down and said something like, "Huh." He said, "How was it?" I said, "It was amazing. It reminded me that when I was younger I wanted to be a midwife." He said, "Well, what changed your mind?" I thought about it for a minute or two and then said, "Actually, nothing."
By the end of the day, I was doing research, and seriously considering leaving my corporate job to become a midwife. What I learned was that midwifery school is expensive. I also had some reservations, because I had never actually been present at a birth. It's weird to feel like there's something that you're supposed to do, but you've never done it before and what if you don't like it after all? I read a bunch of books, I interviewed local midwifehawkegirl, and then I decided to try being a doula. My rationale was that it is cheap to get trained as a doula, and it would be a good way to "get my feet wet" and find out if I really wanted to make the leap from corporate work to birth work.
I got trained through ALACE, the Association of Labor Assistants and Childbirth Educators, which has its national headquarters here in Boston. They are a wonderful group based on the midwifery model of care. I found that I really like being a doula. Many women cannot afford midwives or "risk out" of home births, and I believe those women also deserve to have support. I am also happy not to have the liability, both legal and emotional, for when things go wrong with a baby's health. So, the decision I made a few years ago was that I would stay a doula if I could make it profitable. I broke even this year. I hope in two more years, I will be actively contributing to the financial success of my household, and then I will get to keep doing what I love. If that doesn't work out, I would probably try to still do it and just do more other work on the side (like temping).
If I won the lottery, though, I would definitely go to midwifery school. It's ironic since science was never one of my best subjects.
clonetwin: "A follow up question - what compelled you to become a doula?""Compelled" is a great word here. Some of you have probably already heard this story (which technically I should have posted after I posted that question about books changing your life).
About three and a half or four years ago I read the memoir of an Alabama midwife, Onnie Lee Logan. (It's been published under two titles - Motherwit and Listen to me Good.) This amazing woman spent seventy years delivering babies in rural Alabama - a place where you have to drive three or four hours to get to the nearest hospital, and that's if you have a car. A place where doctors don't want to practice because the rewards are few and it's just so darned depressing. She served women of color almost exclusively, people who had almost no resources or education and would pay her in food if they could pay her at all. Many of them named their children after her.
I finished this book one morning at breakfast time.
mrpet was sitting with me. I put the book down and said something like, "Huh." He said, "How was it?" I said, "It was amazing. It reminded me that when I was younger I wanted to be a midwife." He said, "Well, what changed your mind?" I thought about it for a minute or two and then said, "Actually, nothing."By the end of the day, I was doing research, and seriously considering leaving my corporate job to become a midwife. What I learned was that midwifery school is expensive. I also had some reservations, because I had never actually been present at a birth. It's weird to feel like there's something that you're supposed to do, but you've never done it before and what if you don't like it after all? I read a bunch of books, I interviewed local midwife
hawkegirl, and then I decided to try being a doula. My rationale was that it is cheap to get trained as a doula, and it would be a good way to "get my feet wet" and find out if I really wanted to make the leap from corporate work to birth work. I got trained through ALACE, the Association of Labor Assistants and Childbirth Educators, which has its national headquarters here in Boston. They are a wonderful group based on the midwifery model of care. I found that I really like being a doula. Many women cannot afford midwives or "risk out" of home births, and I believe those women also deserve to have support. I am also happy not to have the liability, both legal and emotional, for when things go wrong with a baby's health. So, the decision I made a few years ago was that I would stay a doula if I could make it profitable. I broke even this year. I hope in two more years, I will be actively contributing to the financial success of my household, and then I will get to keep doing what I love. If that doesn't work out, I would probably try to still do it and just do more other work on the side (like temping).
If I won the lottery, though, I would definitely go to midwifery school. It's ironic since science was never one of my best subjects.