My Journey to Becoming a Doula

I have been fascinated by childbirth for as long as I can remember… 

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Although I am an American, I grew up in Izmir, Turkey, and had the special opportunity of watching my mother attend numerous births with women who wanted her by their side.  In many ways she was a “doula” to these women, even though she had never heard of the term until I started training to become a doula myself in 2008.  

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Because of my mother, my earliest introduction to childbirth was full of fascination and wonder instead of fear and trauma.  She was present with these new mothers in that vulnerable and magical moment when they met their babies face-to-face for the very first time—and a bit of that magic rubbed off on me.

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As an adult I have been privileged to travel to more than twenty nations, and I have lived for extended stretches in Turkey, India, South Africa, Germany, Northern Ireland, and the USA.  In each of these places I’ve been captivated by the lives of women and girls—their struggles, joys, opportunities, the obstacles they face and the stories they tell.

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These experiences led me to pursue further education about the multi-layered challenges women face around the world.  While doing my master’s degree in International Development and Social Change, with a focus on Gender and Development, I found myself especially drawn to the unique but global challenges of pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period.

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In the middle of such theoretical, big-picture research and studies, my husband and I conceived our first child.  Suddenly, all of my somewhat-blurry thoughts and theories about how pregnancy affected women came into sharp, practical focus as I prepared to give birth. 

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It was the surprising overlap of my studies about pregnancy and my firsthand experience of being pregnant that ultimately led me to train as a doula: to make the theory practical, to journey alongside expectant parents in the struggles and joys they face in the here-and-now, to support and celebrate the wonder and power of birth by supporting and championing the birth-givers themselves.