Life-Changing Work

There’s a very specific feeling of urgency I’ve experienced often throughout my life. A feeling that tells me “you need to do something about this! This is extremely important and you KNOW you can do something about it!” It usually hits me after a moment of education. Like when I learned about the genocide in Palestine and couldn’t carry on a normal conversation without bringing it up. “Isn’t this crazy?!” I would plead with my family and friends. What I really wanted to say was, “Please care about this as much as me!”

That’s how I feel about becoming a doula.

Justice-Oriented Doula Work

Since I can remember I have always been obsessed with pregnancy, birth, babies, and parenthood… but the more I learn about it—the more I really dive into the history of reproductive rights in the US, and the struggles that pregnant people and parents are battling every day without proper support… I’ve found myself, again, pleading with my family and friends, “isn’t this crazy?!” Please care about this as much as me!

As I’ve learned more about the Reproductive Justice framework, and about the need for bodily autonomy and policies that validate and meet the needs of pregnant people and their babies… I see how as a doula, I can make a real impact.

I might be the difference between a new mom spending her first weeks postpartum struggling to process her traumatic birth vs. spending it gazing sleepily, peacefully at her baby, because she knew how to prepare for the unknowns of birth and the ways it tests you.

I might be the only one in a pregnant person’s life to talk with them about postpartum mental health, and could be the catalyst for them seeking help when they need it.

I might be the only person in someone’s life they can trust to support them throughout their abortion process.

I might be the only person in the room who takes a Black woman’s pain seriously.

I might be the only person in the room who validates a transmasc person’s desire to get pregnant and birth their child.

What We’re Up Against

Unfortunately, our country has failed to implement the type of support system we need to ensure our pregnant folks and babies thrive. In fact, the US medical system often upholds extremely traumatic, and often fatal, systems of oppression. Not that I’m anti-Western medicine and hospitals… I'm absolutely not. That’s life saving shit right there. But I’m also aware of the harm caused by racism, transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny in reproductive spaces. Harm that has a wide range of consequences. And if we as a society can’t take proper care of our child-bearers and infants (and remember every single person starts out as an infant!) then what the hell are we doing!? There’s that sense of urgency again. You know you can do something about this! 

Done Being Desensitized

I’m not gonna pretend I’m perfect—I definitely don’t follow through with that sense of urgency every time an injustice touches my heart. With widespread immediate access to knowledge about what’s happening literally everywhere all the time, it’s easy to overload myself with empathy to the point where I have no capacity to actually do anything to help. And in such a case I’ve taken my potential to help and driven it into the ground by exhausting my energy just feeling and thinking… not actually doing. 

It’s an easy trap to fall into, one that white folks like me fall into a LOT. You learn about an injustice and you consume example after example of people suffering because of that injustice, and you think that by bearing witness you’re somehow joining the force for change, when in reality you’re just making yourself feel like shit and nobody benefits from that. And slowly but surely, we’ve become desensitized to it and that’s where apathy and hopelessness come in. Nobody benefits from that.

But I’m practicing re-sensitizing myself to the things within my scope, that I can for sure have an immediate impact on. I’m building my doula practice with the hope of reaching people in my Bay Area community who need me. I think I might need them just the same! And we can’t find each other if I’m burnt out from scrolling. It’s always going to be a balance of awareness and action. Empathy and rest. The needs are urgent… We can all feel it. This work takes intentionality–precision.

I’ve realized that, through doula work, my skills can be life-changing. And I’m so excited to see how this work changes my life, as well.