Leaving my job to become a doula

Luck is when hard work meets opportunity!

Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am. I am a fitness instructor, turned visual effects artist (oops), turned fitness instructor again, turned doula, turned pre and postnatal fitness instructor. I get to work everyday with some of the best women I have ever met, I get to witness their babies come into the world or teach super fun fitness classes that help them bring their babies into the world. And the best part is? I still get to use my visual art skills from time to time….but we will get to that later!

I wanted to become a Doula

The path to my ‘dream job’ was definitely not straight forward but I never felt quite right until I entered the the birth field. It was certainly a big decision to leave a high paying  job and forge alone along this new uncertain path, but as REO Speedwagon would say, I couldn’t fight the feeling anymore. I wanted to become a doula and it was pretty much all I thought about during those long days at my desk!

Researching Upcoming Doula Trainings

You may be asking, how does one go from (semi) happily working her day job to researching upcoming doula trainings?  That’s easy, my super adorable nephew was born!

One stormy morning in March, 2 weeks after his due date and at the exact hour I was meant to return back to Toronto for work, my nephew was born and my life was changed. At the time I didn’t know that by being by my sisters side during her birth I was filling the role of a doula, I just knew that I wanted to do THAT…forever!

I didn’t jump with 2 feet into the doula world the way I would have liked to, I am far too anxious for that kind of bravery. I first got my feet wet with a weekend training and by reading just about every book on the topic. I got back to my fitness roots and started teaching pregnancy specific classes after work and on weekends. I put my name out there and started going to interviews for doula work, eventually getting hired and calling in sick or using a vacation day if the birth happened during work hours.

I tossed and turned over the decision to leave my job. Would I be able to find enough clients? Would I be able to support myself? Would I regret it and come crawling back? The only thing I was truly sure about what that I could no longer work this many jobs and that a decision would need to be made. And of course you know what I chose.

Doula Career

This new career eventually led me further down the path to meet my business partner, Bianca (Medical student turned doula) and together we created bebo mia and eventually moved on to become owners of Baby & Me Fitness, because…FITNESS!

At the time we met, we both had thriving doula businesses, but it wasn’t always that way for us. We spent hours talking about how hard it was to get started, how we had very little community support and really no business help along the way. Bianca was a whiz with finances, and she noticed early on that I had a good eye for design. There were  tonnes of ways our skills and personalities complemented each other, so many in fact that we decided to team up!

In the years that passed I got married, had a baby of my own (yes I was a doula before I had kids) and started an educational branch of bebo mia that focuses on training doulas how to care for their clients as well as themselves and their business.  I will never truly be able to describe his fulfilling it is to help others breeze through what was such a challenging time for me! Plus, I get to use my graphic skills again, and this time I love it. This time I feel lucky to do it!

It’s funny how things come full circle for me…there truly are no mistakes!