Exposing Birth: Doula [Un]School

I firmly believe that if you are a birth photographer you should also be a doula. 

I know I know, that is a bold statement. But hear me out. Even as a photographer, you are already in a roundabout way providing a doula service already. 

The parallel between birth photographer and doula are strikingly similar. Also, lets not forget how many wavering hands we hand water bottles too whilst the other hand covers their faces as they blindly reach for water during or in between contractions. How many times have you reminded the partner to eat and reassure him that you can sit with the birthing person while they refuel? Every time you have said “but you ARE DOING IT!” to a transitioning birthing person in between shots. 

You see, doula work is what it means to be human. The only difference is I am going to teach you how to hone in your human. I am going to teach you how to communicate effectively, how to listen between the lines, and how to serve more powerfully by serving yourself first. The only way to inspire others to be empowered is to empower yourself. 

There are a couple of ways people find themselves on the journey to becoming a doula.

Birth workers who are already in this space; birth photographers, childbirth educators, herbalists, chiropractors, hypnobirthing educators, midwives, and even some doctors (gp’s, nurses, and OB’s when they find they can’t serve birthing people powerfully withing the system they are coerced to work in.) They want to add a layer of education to their tooldbelt to better serve and understand birthing people even if they don’t plan on practicing as a doula. Because lets face it, having a good spoonful of humanity is ALWAYS a good idea no matter WHAT line of work you are in. 

Parents who go through birth or have a family or friend who go through birth and were asked to be present at their birth or were inspired by their own birth or doula that want to dip their toes into the birth world. They likely start off as advocates for friends and family, letting them know they have the right to decline or choose a different option even if the option wasn’t presented to them. 

I’ll tell you the exact moment I knew I wanted to be a doula. 

I was attending my 50ish birth and was in my second year of photographing births. I was still taking the fly on the wall approach to documenting births. I thought that I should not be seen or heard. I frequently backed myself into a corner and never spoke. Ever. I was too afraid to even great the family when entering the birth space. I was too afraid to get too close the parents during labour. I made sure not to wear any perfumes or oils as to not bring attention to myself. Then, one day, I attended a birth that changed my life, really. Not just how I document births but how I serve my clients. 

There is something about hearing the screams of a woman receiving an unconsented episiotomy without local. Hearing a birthing person say “What the fuck just happened after birth in lieu of “OMG I did it!” changes you. It changes and rearranges every single fucking cell in your being. I knew from that moment forward that by being a fly on the wall, I was doing a disservice to my clients. I knew that my clients were having shittier birth experience than they needed to have because you don’t know what you don’t know. I knew that was the moment I wanted to become a doula.”

And so I did. But before I get to that part, I started asking all of my clients during our in person meetings if they would give me their birth plans so I could

1. Get their shot list to create a custom story for them and

2. Because I wanted to know when someone was doing something that wasn’t on that list so I could notify the birthing family. 

The next words out of my mouth after I asked for the birth plan was “If I see something going on fishy that isn’t on this list, would you life for me to tell you?”
So many of my initial clients were confused. They would also say, “Ummm, sure, but could you give an example? I don’t understand, why would someone do what they weren’t supposed to?” 

THIS is where the trauma comes in- BUT that is a conversation for another day and an entire module. So I would explain to them if I were to see someone reaching for scissors yet they asked for delayed cord clamping, would they life for me to notify them There is NOTHING worse on this planet than thinking you got what you asked for only to get the images back and realise you had exactly 3.2 seconds of ‘delayed’ cord clamping see that big plump purple and blue cord being cut. EVERY SINGLE CLIENT I asked was SO grateful to have someone on their side during birth. They ALL said YES PLEASE tell me! They were all so oblivious and would always say they had no idea that could even happen! 

Thus, my journey for advocacy was born. I didn’t even consider this as a doula service. I considered this to be common courtesy on my part (remember doula= humanity). Every single parent deserved this. I felt deeply that it was my job as a birth photographer to give them exactly what they wanted. Essentially hundreds of my clients received a sort of two-fer bonus when they booked me. But then I started my ‘official’ doula journey. And let’s just say I wasn’t too enthused. Read on. 

I called myself a doula. 

There are some doulas who know their shit like stats, and links, and all the spinning babies, and the best lunges to do at just the right time during a contraction. This is SUPER helpful. I know a bunch of stuff, but not NEARLY as much as what others do. Then, there are some who have a natural remedy for EVERYTHING. I have a few, but I’m no naturopath.

I feel like there are inbetweeners. 

Ya know, like, sure I know some stats and ya, I can be woo, but I didn’t feel like I truly fit into the doula world because I started out as a birth photographer. I felt less than because I didn’t have a link to every-single-ailment on the planet for pregnancy and birth/postpartum related issues. Or on the flip side, I didn’t have an oil or herb for every-single-ailment for pregnancy and birth/postpartum related issues. So, I just let my clients know I was a doula. To everyone else in the birth world, they didn’t even know I practiced as a doula. Actually, I bet my last dollar that when you saw I was releasing a doula course you thought “What the fuck Lace? You’re a doula but you don’t ACTUALLY doula!?”

I do. I doula a lot.

In fact, I doula most all of my clients. This has enabled me to exponentially increase my average sale by diversifying my offerings. I’m going to teach you how to do that too. 

We know the statistics.
We know how invaluable doulas are.
We know the etymology of the word doula.

That’s all basic stock standard knowledge (if you’ve been in the birth world for a while.)

If you didn’t know, google it. I’m not taking your money to teach your stuff you can find for free on the internet.

I’m not here to teach you stock standard bullshit statistics or etymology of words…

Welcome to Exposing Birth: Doula [Un]School

This is for anyone who has ever felt: 

Misplaced

Misunderstood

Misconstrued

Confused

and all around discombobulated. 

Just as I began to unschool my children during the Victorian Covid-19 lock down, I too, think it’s time to unschool doulas. 

We will be learning incredible processes and tools to help your clients cope, transform, and transmute pain, trauma and a plethora of other things they may come up against in their birthing journeys. 

And that is a powerful way to doula. 

Woo-ing your way through doula work will only get you so far. But also, being so masculine that there is no room for flow, also won’t work.

This is where Doula [Un]Schooling comes in. 

It isn’t enough to say ‘birth where you feel safe.’ People choose different births because they have different values.

This is where we as a doula come through. It is our job to be able to create processes and strategies for our clients to be able to identify what they value most in their birthing experience to be able to achieve an ideal outcome.

WOOING YOUR WAY THROUGH BIRTH WILL ONLY GET YOU SO FAR.

Throughout this course, we will be going through they way people think, why they think that way, and how we can help them change their thinking (if appropriate) or transmute experiences to play to their power. 

As a doula, by being able to use language and acute listening skills, you’ll be able to pinpoint who will work well with you on a business level and who may be better suited for another doula. So now, we are doubling up on our skill to use them for our clients as well as ourselves. Doula work is universal. It can be applied to every area and aspect of life.

My job as your teacher is to show you how we can universally apply our birth skills not only to our clients but ourselves as well.

Making us some of the most self-empowered people on the planet. 

Join Doula [Un]School today.

This course is for those who are already immersed in the birth space and have basic knowledge of birth; physiology, cascade of intervention, and surgical birth. Although, if you know very little about birth, you will still leave this course feeling confident to support your doula clients upon completion. I invite you no matter what stage you are in your birth worker journey to join us during the next 10 months and build your doula business on a solid foundation.