I want to give you all a very real picture of what life has been like during the past 3 years since I stopped working as a doula.

THE GOOD SUMMARY: In 2014 I became a momma of two! Jonathan James “JJ” has been an amazing addition to our family. In 2016 after 5 moves in 4 years we finally purchased a house and have a place to call our own. Olivia started kindergarten (I can’t believe my first baby is that big). Our new house got hit by the worst hail storm in the history of who knows when (yes I’m counting that as good because of our amazing insurance that covered all the repairs) and we finally for the first time in 8 years have 2 fully working vehicles!

THE BAD SUMMARY:  too nauseous in pregnancy to keep up with doula schedule, unexpected C-section, start recovery, husband starts brand new job (which means he’s not as readily available if I’m on call), baby in hospital for 1 week, start back to school, drop out of school, back to work at 8 weeks postpartum, freak out and turn in notice to work which somehow turns into accepting a full time position instead, and never catch up on sleep again! All of this coincided with my toughest battle yet with anxiety and depression so needless to say something had to change.

Keeping a household running, keeping two young children happy, and trying to have a healthy marriage is nearly impossible when you yourself feel horrible in every way. Some days it was impossible. Unfortunately those days were typically the weekend when my family life not my work life would suffer. I needed to “recover” from the week and mentally prepare as much as I could for the week ahead. This routine usually included me coming up with a list of all the reasons I couldn’t just walk out of the office and never return. While I truly loved the line of work and the people I got to interact with, the thought of waking up each morning to go to work was horrific. I think this would have been the case anywhere I was working but being a job I loved made it difficult to walk away. How could something I cared for so much make me so miserable? I’ve come to the conclusion it wasn’t the job just the schedule that was hindering me. I needed to get to a healthier place and a different schedule was the key to that. It still took me 6 months to turn in my notice and when I finally did, I gave a 2 MONTH notice. This was the furthest thing from an overnight decision.

In all of fighting back and forth with myself I confided in a friend who asked, “What is your dream job?” Midwifery would be too much schooling at this time so my answer was to get back into doula work, but “I can’t”.

WHY NOT? Was the question to myself and from my friend.

I would rather try and fail than to not give it a shot at all. I’ve found a solution to all of my excuses (childcare, family finances, class material, etc) so all that’s missing now is clients!

If it’s not time for my dream job then that’s ok I’ve got back up plans but I’m going to give this my all while I can!

-Kelsey-