Welcome to Hallowed Mama Doula! I’m Melissa and I’m delighted you’re here. My path to becoming a postpartum doula is deeply intertwined with my postpartum experiences and the desire to support women during their own transformative postpartum seasons.
My Postpartum Journey to Motherhood
After 7 years of marriage, my husband and I were blessed to become parents for the first time in 2011! Our chewy, stoic, bright-eyed babe entered this world at 8 lbs. and 1 oz. of perfection! Perfection that we never knew we needed in our lives until he arrived. That moment rocked our world in the very best possible way and changed the trajectory of our lives forevermore. Fast forward 13 years, I am now the mother of four incredible sons. I am so grateful for each experience of pregnancy (even my miscarriages), labor, birth, and postpartum. What a journey it has been experiencing firsthand the joys and challenges that come with motherhood. Each new life is such a unique adventure and how wonderful that I get to be a part of them!
Becoming a parent is not without its woes, but it has taught me so much about the diverse needs of postpartum women. To include my experiences with infertility. Albeit exhausting and deeply sorrowful, it helped me become the woman, wife and mother that I am. While I wouldn’t wish it on a soul, it truly deepened me. Infertility taught me about surrendering to God’s will and developed a compassion for others that I did not have before. Understanding the heartache and longing that can accompany the journey to parenthood has only made me more committed to providing support to postpartum women.
Why a Postpartum Doula?
When I was pregnant with my oldest son, I spent hours flipping through “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” books. I went to pregnancy yoga classes and attended birthing classes. And that nursery was loaded with all the things! Outside of attending a single breastfeeding class, most of my focus was on being pregnant and how to birth. I didn’t spend much time preparing for my postpartum healing. On the surface I felt ready, but I was not prepared for the nitty-gritty aftermath of that beautiful experience.
In the moment, I wished someone would have mentally prepared me for the shock of so much bleeding. Or helped me understand the difficulty of making decisions while sleep deprived. And not in a joking way. Why didn’t anyone mention that at two days postpartum I should go to the bathroom at the first sensation to pee? It was a big-time bummer moment for me when I learned that bladder control returns slowly.
All the Postpartum Love
I say all of this because I have amazing people in my life that love me, provide for me, pray for me, and were present to help me. I simply could not have a better advocate or partner than my incredible husband. My mother, mother-in-law, aunts, friends, co-workers… I have been so blessed to be loved, championed, and supported through my postpartum seasons. Even with all of that goodness surrounding me, I struggled with postpartum anxiety. The fear of failure, breastfeeding difficulties, insomnia, loneliness, and so much insecurity overwhelmed me.
When my second son was born, and I was flooded again with overwhelming love and community, it dawned on me that there are women who will never receive the kind of postpartum care that I received. In my wildly hormonal weeks after birth, I was obsessed with the idea that I needed to help. I wanted to care for, educate, and be a resource to women that didn’t have a community around them. I could be that! Enter postpartum doula care. I feel that there’s a very good public network of care for pregnant women and helping them labor and birth. As time goes by, our culture is starting to focus on better support for postpartum women. But there is so much more to do. Thus, my doula journey began.
A Holy Moment
It’s been a minute since that initial passion for doula care flared in me. After each subsequent baby, the prompting to begin again was renewed. In the midst of living a very full life with four kiddos, I was hit with the Holy Spirit.
Sitting in Mass one day, with my perfect, 2-week-old #4 piece of perfect, the homily drove it home for me. During a pro-life homily the message was about pushing ourselves to really walk-the-walk and talk-the-talk. What were we all doing to truly support the prolife cause? In an instant, our beloved priest looked right at me (very unintentionally so) and asked, “How prolife are you”? In that moment, doula work pierced my mind like lightning yet again. I took that as my moment to have heard Him loud and clear. It was time to start making the difference I had pledged years before. I finished my postpartum doula and bengkung belly binding certifications and decided to just start. God would show me his plans.
Walking with You
In that, I strongly believe that no woman should go alone into motherhood. That might be a wife whose husband is working a world away. Maybe a single college woman. A woman who fled an abusive relationship. A happy newlywed who wants privacy to ask the “messy” questions. Perhaps a woman planning to give her baby up for adoption. It might be you. Whatever the path, every woman deserves a sacred postpartum season full of healing. And it is such a blessing to be able to walk that raw and beautiful path with you. Let’s talk!
With warmth and gratitude, Melissa