Goodbye, 2022!

It’s been an amazing year for my small business. I’m excited to share with you what I’ve done this year, with your help.

As a doula, I’ve served 46 families. (At one point, I was working with 6 clients who had the same first name!)
Some fun facts and thank yous:
Of the 47 babies whose birth I supported at this year, 2 were redheads. My most common meal at a birth was a BLT with bbq chips, and the two most common things on the tv at hospitals where I practice were “Friends” and “Jurassic Park”. I’m really grateful for my doula trainer and for my accountability buddy for helping me grow my practice this year, and for my family, who makes it possible for me to up and leave or up and disappear whenever there’s a birth. My husband in particular deserves a shout-out, not just for handling our household solo at the drop of a hat, but also for being the cutest Jimmy Johns delivery driver ever (even though it’s not his day job).

As a childbirth educator, I taught classes for 11 families. I also taught newborn care classes for 2 additional families! And, I finally bought the 48 rubber duckies I’ve been dreaming of for class activities. I’m so excited to have taken the Lamaze teacher training class with two fantastic educators and to have taken the Lamaze exam with support from an awesome study buddy group; hopefully I’ll have good news to share about that soon!

To build support for families, I ran 8 local programs, mostly through the Notre Dame Family Resource Center. The most popular program was “Multilingualism for Babies.” That’s one I really love to do, since finding other families who speak multiple languages can foster so much wisdom and community. I also ran the MotherWell’s weekly pregnancy and postpartum community groups online, which are a highlight of my week each and every week.

Thanks to the support of the Mother Well and our generous sponsors, I was also able to lead the monthly bereaved moms community group and the annual Bereavement Retreat again this year.

I also spoke about perinatal loss at 2 conferences and 2 mastermind speaker series, and I trained 33 birth professionals in perinatal loss support.

Supporting birthworkers, especially doulas, took some other forms as well. I got virtual coffee with 19 new doulas, supporting them as they begin this work. And, I spoke at a 3rd mastermind and at an international conference for doulas, each time presenting my dissertation research on motherhood identity. (Again, I’m really grateful for my doula trainer and my accountability buddy for pushing me to apply for those opportunities.)

I’m also really excited that this year I got a book deal, won my university’s social justice award, and finished two certifications (one for birth doula work and one for perinatal loss education).

That’s the overview. I’m so grateful to each of you, dear readers, for being a part of these efforts this past year! If you have ideas for what I should do next year, or if you want to learn about other ways you can join in or support my efforts, send me an email.

Enjoy your last little bit of 2022!