are you a birth doula?

LindseyJW

i'm thinking about becoming a birth doula and would love to hear from other mom doulas about their experiences. 

how do you balance having young children and doula responsibilities? logistics of childcare and family life?

what do you wish you'd considered before? what have been your biggest lessons?

thanks so much for your time! 

Celyn

I am.  It's my bliss, truly, but the childcare is a huge stress factor.  It's hands down the worst part of my job.  When I leave for work, I never know if I'm going to be gone for 8 hours or 48 hours (the longest I was with a client was 58 hours -- it's not common, but it happens).  It's hard to find a sitter with that kind of flexibility and friends are only understanding of that so many times.  My husband is extraordinarily supportive, but even he gets burned out when my client load is heavy.  

Good luck!  It's amazing work, but you have to take some time to find what balance works best for you. 

LindseyJW

thanks for your comments! this is the most stressful part of just thinking about this! i've been working with expecting women for a couple years now and more and more have been asked about birth work. i just don't know how we'd make that work, but it's something i more and more want to do!

Cheekers2010

This is a huge difficulty for me right now as well.  I'm not currently taking any clients because of some health problems but I hope they are well enough resolved to allow me to work again soon.  The conclusion I've come to is that I won't be able to take on a heavy client load-probably 1 client per month at most.  I just don't have the childcare resources to afford more than that.  My DH will be with my son at night but it will be a shuffle to find someone to cover days.

Even more controversially...I am considering not taking on any ftm's.  Labors tend to be so much longer (although that's not universally true, of course!).  This is obviously not something I will continue doing but for the next year or two until my son is in preschool/kindergarten, it may just be a necessary decision for now.  I know that a lot of doulas wouldn't take that step. I haven't decided yet.

I truly love being a doula, but for this brief period in my son's life, it needs to take a backseat to him.

ETA:  I should also add that I always work with a partner.  We do all client meetings together and then whoever is available when the client goes into labor attends.  If one of us is at a really really long birth, we can relieve the other.  It's part of the reason both of us are completely involved in the prenatal care-so that the client feels comfortable with either of us.  If they don't for some reason, we make sure the client is able to chose which she'd prefer.