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Following Up On My Doula Path. Step One: La Leche League Meeting.

September 19, 2011 By Erika Zane

19 Sep

I want to be a Birth Doula someday.  My even greater ambition is to one day become a midwife.

If you read this post a few weeks ago, you already know these things, but you don’t know what I’ve been doing since I announced my intention to pursue these dreams.  As I mentioned, to become a Doula, I need childbirth education training.  I used the Bradley Method with my last birth, I loved it, and I would love to become a Bradley Method Instructor anyway, so I will be pursuing that before the Doula training.  One of the requirements for Bradley Instructor Training is attendance of La Leche meetings, which brings me to step one of the Doula process.

I attended a La Leche League meeting at the beginning of the month and joined.  It was so wonderfully refreshing to be in a room full of women who didn’t think it was weird that I’m still nursing my 20 month old.  In many ways, I have recently been conforming to societal norms, or at least attempting to appear that way.  What I mean is: I ceased to nurse in public, only nurse Little Man at nap and bedtimes (which are my favorite times of the day), and never mentioned that I still nursed unless directly asked.  I don’t really know why I did that.  I am not ashamed that I still nurse him, and attending that meeting helped me to realize that hiding that from the world isn’t doing him or me any good.

I am not saying I was told what I was doing was wrong.  In fact, I never even brought it up.

I’m also not saying it’s necessary to nurse in public.  I just mean, I had a fear of it, which had been keeping me from nursing him when he needed comforting outside of our home (ie, after hurting himself on the playground, while having a temper tantrum from being over tired, or just after I forgot to bring a snack for him and he was melting down).  Feeling the love and support of other nursing mothers around me and hearing their words of encouragement as I talked about nursing while pregnant was empowering.

Now that I have attended a meeting, my plans have shifted slightly.  Our financial situation along with a very full fall/winter calendar, have forced me to stretch those plans out a little.  Both Bradley Method Instructor training and birth Doula training are time intensive and expensive at more than $500 each.  I can, however, in the mean time pursue leadership within La Leche League, which I believe is much more affordable.  Not only that, but I believe I’ll have the opportunity to really support women in their postpartum breastfeeding efforts, which is something I have also always wanted to do, and may someday lead me to becoming a lactation consultant and/or educator.

In any case, I’m not giving up on my dreams, I’m actually starting to think bigger.  My long term plan is to become more involved with La Leche right now, complete Bradley Method Instructor training next year, and then decide where I want to go from there.

Are you or is anyone you know a Birth Doula?  How long did it take them?  Is there one training or organizational affiliation you would recommend over others?  I would love any advice on pursuing this dream.

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Filed Under: breastfeeding, Career, Life, nursing

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Comments

  1. Michelle says

    September 20, 2011 at 11:13 pm

    Exciting! Can’t wait to hear how it all turns out! 🙂

Trackbacks

  1. Enchanting Birth says:
    October 6, 2011 at 4:42 pm

    […] mentioned before that I’d love to become a birth doula or midwife.  Recently I said I was going to hold off on pursuing that passion.  That decision has been nagging at […]

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About me

Hello and welcome.  It’s been a while.  For Lent this year I decided to fast from the thing that took too much of my attention from what is truly important: Social Media.  Though there are countless amazing benefits to Social Media, after about a month offline so far, there are seemingly just as many negatives.  I never realized how much of my brain had been hijacked by it.  I’ve had so many revelations about how much easier it is to move forward when I’m not constantly reminded of the past.  But I still want to record my family as they grow at this ridiculous speed and, I’m realizing, so many of our family’s memories are here.  Those along with so many of the struggles and stages we’ve worked through.  Maybe in the midst of COVID19 isolation and my kids around me so often, I’m brought back to a time when they were too young for school and with me so often.  Writing here during that time helped make up for the limited adult conversation in my days and the overwhelm provided by my… little treasures 😉 My husband, fur babies, three fiesty kids, and I hereby extend an invitation to visit this little sneak peak into our life. We’re super flawed and broken and there aren’t too many dull moments around here.  And I promise it’s not always as magical as some of my golden hour, sun-soaked images would suggest.  There’s usually too much coffee in my system and we welcome all the prayers.  Come on over if you want to process with me.

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