My journey to becoming a doula
My story begins, as so many do, in 2020 with the advent of COVID-19. I was in the thick of a PhD program in American History, preparing for my second round of comprehensive exams and outlining the first draft of my dissertation. I was teaching gen ed history classes at my university and meeting regularly with my advisors and mentors as the next big phase of my degree approached, all while I had two babies (4 and 2) at home. I was tired — always — but committed to my work.
And then COVID hit. I spent the first three months of lockdown teaching virtually, while my husband worked from home and we both tried to keep our toddlers entertained and occupied. I was the only person in my cohort with kids, and I would get on ZOOM calls and hear things like “I have so much more time for research now!” and “Yeah, lockdown sucks, but I’m getting so much more done.” Meanwhile, I had infinitely less time for research, reading, and writing, barely staying afloat in the classes I was teaching, let alone the classes I was taking. I was drowning in stress and to-do lists, staying up late to read my comps list books and getting up early with the babies. The stress was getting to me.
And then I stopped being able to read.
I woke up one day, got the kids up, fed, and dressed, took them for our morning walk, and then settled in to read while they watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. But the words on the page didn’t make sense. The letters looked foreign and unfamiliar - I reread the same paragraph over and over again, trying to make it make sense. I picked up a different book, and it was the same thing: the words strung together on the page made no sense in my brain. I couldn’t read.
I had been a voracious reader since the age of three. Half the reason I wanted the PhD was so that I could spend my time reading the books that captivated my interest, that taught me about the world and its patterns. I devoured books, I loved taking notes and making connections and coming up with research ideas that built on the theories I read. I’d built my entire life around reading. And in a single day, it all came crashing down.
That day, in July of 2020, sparked a years-long depressive episode in which I was forced to reevaluate everything. I’d watched COVID ravage the world, and now that I couldn’t escape into my books, I began wondering what the point of my research was. Sure, I had things to say about the intersections of gender and urban history. But how was that helping people here, now?
I got a job as a barista at a local coffee shop and quit the PhD. I was scared out of my mind, adrift in the world with no sense of purpose, the goal I’d been working toward for eight years up in smoke. I knew I didn’t want the PhD anymore, but what did I want?
I wanted to read. I desperately wanted to read again. I decided to test the waters with books I’d read and loved before: Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. I managed to get through Equal Rites, though I read slowly, in fits and spurts. Then I picked up the Tiffany Aching subseries, which I hadn’t read yet, starting with The Wee Free Men. It was a slow start, and I struggled to get my mind to wrap around the story. But Terry Pratchett didn’t fail me, and soon I was reading the second book, then the third—Tiffany, though a lot younger than me in the books, became a lifeline. I saw myself in her, in the way she saw the world and her home, and I loved her. As she grew and learned, so did I. As she took on the responsibilities of being a witch in the world, I realized there were so many pieces of her work that spoke to me and resonated with me. She delivered babies and cared for mothers. She sat with the sick and the dying, holding pain, offering dignity. She asked and answered the hard questions, leveraging her fear into power. She walked alongside the people of her community, and I realized that’s what I wanted to do.
It’s what I’d always wanted to do, but I’d worried I was too small, too unimportant, too afraid, too late. I didn’t know how I could make it my livelihood, how I could put food on the table. But I was willing to try. I started training as a birth doula, then added abortion doula training and grief & loss training to round out my offerings.
Then, in January of 2023, I traveled to Colorado to help my grandma care for my grandpa, who was in the end stages of Lewy Body Dementia. My mom and uncles had decided a few weeks prior that it was time to take turns staying with them for a couple of weeks at a time, to help care for him and give my grandma some respite. My mom had taken the first rotation, then I volunteered to go and stay for a week. Before I left, I asked a friend who had trained as a death doula if she had any resources she could share with me to prepare me for my stay. She sent me some pages from INELDA, which I read on the plane. The pages she’d sent were perfect, a beautiful mix of practical and spiritual-emotional guidance for interacting with someone at the end of life.
Once I arrived at their house, I realized that we were much closer to the end than I’d originally thought. Within five days of my arrival, I was making calls to the rest of the family to come and be nearby, as I was seeing signs of rapid decline and I knew everyone wanted to be there. He passed two days later, surrounded by his loved ones, and his death was what we call a good death - he was in his home, surrounded by love, in no pain. His death was also a beautiful turning point as I realized that walking alongside the dying called to me. It took some time, but I eventually completed my death doula training. And here we are.
It may seem silly that my transition to doula work was sparked by a teenage protagonist in a fantasy novel. But she simply opened the door to the possibility. I had always thought of doula work as something I could do “once I retired,” but then realized that A) I am a millennial and will probably never retire, and B) why should I wait to do what I love? And though it was a long, somewhat convoluted path to where I am now, I wouldn’t change any of it. It brought me here.
