the first vaginal birth i ever witnessed um when the baby's head came out i was pretty
sure that i was about to think that i had been standing up holding a leg
and i had to sit down and start breathing deeply and talking myself away from fainting
and of course immediately i thought i am going to be the worst doula ever
so if you're wondering how a computer programmer turns out to be a doula and a child birth educator
making videos on youtube then you're in the right place because today i'm going to be
sharing my story and my promise to you is that i'm not going to sugarcoat it that if there were
bumps and challenges along the way i'm going to be super honest with you about them if we haven't met
before my name is alice turner i am a birth doula certified child birth educator with an engineering
degree and on this channel i make videos about birth it's a life-changing experience and i want
you to be ready for it now this video is a little bit different because i am sharing my personal
journey to where i am right now and giving a little background into the origin of this channel
and why i do what i do so if that is interesting to you buckle up and grab some tea and let's
go now i chose my nashville cup today because i would say my story probably starts in nashville
and in nashville is where i developed a love of the healthcare profession uh i attended vanderbilt
university and received a degree in biomedical engineering and computer science minor and i
worked in the anesthesiology department there i loved my work there at the hospital i was so proud
to wear my hospital badge and have a work-study job at the hospital it was a great experience
but after graduating i did not go into do little work instead i went into something called
bioinformatics which means i did databases for care companies and wait wait don't go
i'm not going to go into the details of database programming let's just say that i worked for years
in a job that paid the bills was very steady but did not feed my soul and in that time i also had
two children and i had two very different birth experiences the first one was kind of a typical
i don't know what i'm doing take the hospital childbirth class experience with an epidural
that i wasn't happy about and the second one i went deep into natural birthing and hypnobirthing
and had a super fast natural childbirth i'm telling you this because it does lead to a
critical part in my story and that is when i had a friend who needed someone to be with her when
she went into labor because her husband had been transferred and he might not make it back in time
and the reason she chose me was because of these two different birth experiences that i had she
said that i was the only one that she knew that had given birth two times and two different ways
and that was enough for her to trust me to know that i could support her if her husband was not
going to be back for the birth of her baby so i jumped on this and i was super excited
to be able to help out this friend i did not know that this was the role of a doula
and just for a little context i was living in atlanta at the time and atlanta didn't really
have a ton of doulas and it wasn't super um known out there of the doula profession i did as much
reading as i could and i met with this friend and i tried to find out exactly how i could help her
um i had my bag ready to go and i was on call for her her husband came back she went into labor
and they didn't call me which was fine but i was sad super sad i thought i had missed out on my one
chance to help somebody out during childbirth and i just thought okay well i missed out on my one
chance but then in the back of my mind i kept saying like i think that this might be a job i
think that people might do this for a living so sure enough did a little bit of research and i
found out yeah people do this for a living so i went ahead i signed up for birth doula training
shout out to my trainer ray davies who came up from florida to atlanta to hold a training
and that is when i hit one of my biggest highs i would say up to that date of my professional life
and i fell right over one of my biggest hurdles so the biggest high was happened i feel like it was i
call it like a doula awakening like an awakening of a passion that i didn't know i had and if
you were watching this in your doula let me know below if you also experienced one of these moments
so here i was i remember we were on a family vacation with my in-laws in um on the coast of
florida and we had a tropical storm come in with two little children and um a house full of adults
that were wanting to be out on the beach but we couldn't be because of the rain and the storm
tropical storm bonnie i remember her well well i had brought my books for my doula
training and i could not stop reading these books and i thought to myself i've never felt this way
before i've never felt like i just wanted to take in every piece of information that i could find
on this topic of childbirth and i was just like i mean just a sponge and as i was reading i just had
this smile on my face because i was learning so much i had this feeling that people don't
know about their options about birth and if only people knew that birth could be different than
stories of the past or stories on tv that they would feel so much better about their options and
when i read these books it dawned on me that yeah that is the case that there is so much information
that people don't know about childbirth and um just so many more options out there so i just was
i mean my mind was blowing up reading these books thankfully when i shared my doula excitement and
my awakening with my husband and my close family everyone was really excited for me and they could
tell that this was something that that i really wanted to pursue and and see how it went so i'm
so lucky for that because i know that's not the case for a lot of people that change professions
so dramatically however i did run into some hurdles when i shared it with some friends um
and you know a lot of the concern was concerned about what would my lifestyle be if i became a
birth doula being on call and with kids and how is that going to be um i had people say that they
couldn't imagine taking such a huge pay cut and would there even be people that would hire me
you know those kind of concerns and i know it was just concerns um for me and and my future
but they were hurdles that i didn't expect because i feel like if i had said i was going to
um change from being a computer programmer to like a manager at a company i would not have been
received with that same kind of negativity maybe as i did by going into doula work
so that was definitely a hurdle the next hurdle i faced was when i had to attend a childbirth
class as part of this doula training so i found a childbirth series that met the requirements for my
doula certification talked to the instructor and she said that i could come along i'd still have to
pay the fee that was fine i remember how excited i was to get to that class and i had my pillows that
i was supposed to bring and i had a notebook and i was just so excited you know of course i had taken
a childbirth class with my first and read tons of books and everything but i just wanted to hear
what this instructor was going to say and i was just thrilled so i went to the class i remember i
sat over on the edge and i kept really quiet was just observing and then um there was a time when
the instructor wanted everyone to introduce themselves and instead of me introducing myself
the instructor said and this is alice she is training to be a doula
there aren't many doulas in atlanta and not many people use doulas but if you
have a question for alice you you can ask her and i was just kind of defeated by her
um introduction of doulas that way that was that was pretty much all she said
and um later on after the class was over she asked me like why was i becoming a doula
because no one in atlanta uses doulas everyone gets epidurals and no one needs doulas and they're
just not popular so i hope that you know she said i hope alice that you're not needing this
for income or is this just a hobby for you because you know it's just not going to work out if that's
what you want to do for a profession and i could not believe it i remember i was driving home from
that class and i just felt like just flattened you know just like all the air out of my sails
here i was so excited about this career and this expert you know someone who teaches childbirth
education had just basically told me that i should give up so okay i'm calming down
that was that was not a happy moment and fast forward she was wrong okay so i ended up having
three clients come out of that class and um you know of course 15 years later here i am making a
video so let me just say if you run into hurdles like that um please don't let them stop you okay
back to doula training i went through training became certified and started working as a doula
that first year was definitely a trying year um some highs some lows some major challenges
where i thought to myself like am i really meant to do this so despite these challenges i could
see pretty quickly uh the role of the doula and the impact that really you can bring to someone's
birth experience just by helping them with their goals helping them know their options
helping to communicate with staff and sometimes it's just the littlest things but they make such
a huge difference and that impact on someone's life is i mean it's amazing and it kind of puts
my programming days to shame like there is no there was never a day when i was pulling data
for a report that i felt like i was making a difference in someone's life for the rest of
their life um but that's what doula work is pretty much every time so that being said my journey to
where i am now has had such amazing highs i have worked with around 300 clients as a doula um
so absolutely grateful to be trusted for so many families and many families time and again
as they have multiple children really that is so special and so incredible and just really a
blessing and makes the hard times so much easier and the hard times do come you know the i had
two children um so i have four um two before i became a doula and two after becoming a doula
and being a doula with babies is no joke it is i mean i'm sure many of the challenges like
any working mom has um pumping and managing milk supply and um you know just having little
ones at home having to have a whole system of babysitters and uh people to you know manage
the life of your children while you're gone the hardest part being that you don't know
how long you're going to be gone when you're a doula are you going to be gone for 5 hours or
15 or 25 so those are definitely challenging days and the income is not necessarily predictable
and it's nowhere near my programming job so um you know after those long births sometimes if you
let yourself figure out what you were making per hour it's a little it can be a little defeating
and sometimes i've questioned myself along the way is this right for my family am i giving my family
everything they need or am i just being selfish by really wanting to fulfill my own passion
with this work and there have been family events that i've missed along the way
that have been hard ah never thought i was gonna cry on this journey okay pull it together alice
being a doula is a weird life and you have to love it but it's so important work so if you do
love it um it's important to keep going and then really the next step in my career was went from
how to reach one family at a time through my birth work or a few families a lot at a time through
childbirth education to how do i reach more people and how do i also have an option to reach people
for free that's what led me to create the online courses so right now i have an online program
for partners to prepare for childbirth called supporting her and i'll put a link down below
and i love being able to do that because i can reach people no matter where they are if they are
looking for a way to get ready especially from the partners point of view i love that and that's been
really fulfilling and exciting part of my work and then of course youtube is a great platform
to reach people that i didn't know i'd be able to reach and it's also free which i love um i love
the ability to put out a video and um hopefully help someone on the other side of the camera and
i actually have two videos next that if you are a doula check out this one and if you're preparing
for childbirth check out this one here and thanks for letting me share my journey with you
see you next time guys talk to you later bye two daughters um while doing this type of work and
you