Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda McLaughlin.
Hi Amanda, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am a chemist turned science teacher turned birth doula. It’s been a kind of weird path, to bring me to birth work, but I’ve always been interested in reproductive health and would even volunteer to lead sex ed groups in college. I was admittedly very status-focused when I was younger and thought that to be involved professionally with birth I had to be the “most important” person in the room.
I think that was a symptom both of immaturity and growing up in New England where the focus on status and accolades can be pretty toxic at times. I looked into becoming an obstetrician, but couldn’t get past the immense cost of medical school so I didn’t pursue that route but did wind up with a chemistry degree.
After working some lab jobs in Boston I ended up in a chemistry Ph.D. program in Colorado. I’m grateful for that program for getting me out west and introducing me to my now-husband/amazing father to my son, but it definitely wasn’t the right fit academically. I did really love working with the students in the intro chemistry classes though so when I dropped out after a year, I pursued teaching. I taught at a K-12 school for six years and loved so much about it.
My favorite class to teach turned out to be a 7th-grade science class partly because I got to teach human reproduction and after having to say “semen” to a room of 12-year-olds I don’t think my nerves can ever be rattled again. I also got to coach middle school cross country and track in those years and lead an outdoors club. I learned a lot about setting aside my ego and becoming responsive to the needs of others as a teacher and coach.
I became a mother in my 5th year of teaching and it got really hard to give both my family and my students as much of myself as I felt they deserved. While my husband was finishing up graduate school and a postdoc though, we were dependent on my income. Once he finished up and landed a faculty position here in Utah, it freed me up to pursue professions that would lend themselves to a better work-life balance.
I learned about doulas while I was pregnant with my son. I had a really rough pregnancy, just sick the whole time, and had lost a lot of confidence in my body, and was dreading labor. I started going to a prenatal yoga class and it did so much to help me regain both mental and physical strength. A doula would come to the class sometimes to teach about optimal birth positioning and I was amazed to learn how much more of an active role I could play in the trajectory of my labor. After only seeing TV and movie depictions of birth it was really empowering to learn about nonmedical ways to cope with labor and different birthing positions.
I didn’t hire a doula for my own birth, but I wish I had! I had a precipitous (under 4 hours) labor and wound up having an unplanned, unassisted home birth. I remember talking to the on-call certified nurse-midwife and having her laugh at me when I told her I thought I was in transition. It was less than two hours after I had woken up to my water breaking and I was a first-time mom. She told me I had a long way to go and not to rush getting to the hospital. I wish I had a doula to talk to then to reassure me in my knowledge of the birthing process and of my own body so I would have advocated for myself better.
Paramedics arrived about three minutes after I caught my son and transported us to the hospital in an ambulance. I had some complications from interventions that were taken after arriving at the hospital, but luckily my son was perfectly healthy. For some, 4-hour labor sounds like a dream, but it was still pretty traumatizing to give birth on my bedroom floor without having any supplies or trained support.
It took me a while of learning and maturing to understand and appreciate that the most important person in the room during labor and delivery is the laboring person and that while there is a time for medical expertise, intervention, and support, there is also a great need for complementary support that’s holistic and focused more on the individual than the outcome.
I’m so happy to have found doula work and to be able to support people through birth so that it can be a positive and empowering experience for them and their families.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
While talking about reproduction and birth are absolutely not new to me, trying to start a business definitely is. Marketing myself is not something that comes naturally and these days it feels like to be a small business owner you also have to be some kind of social media influencer. It’s tough to find the balance between having a searchable online presence and spending all my time on social media; when what I really want to be doing is directly educating and supporting pregnant and birthing people.
A lot of people also just don’t know about doulas or think they only support home births. I’m really passionate about supporting people in the births they want to have whether it is planned induction or spontaneous labor, vaginal or cesarean birth, and regardless of the chosen birthing location. I think everyone deserves to be educated about all their options and supported in their choices, but because doulas typically aren’t employed by hospitals many birthing people don’t realize they have the option to hire one independently.
We’ve been impressed with Equinox Families, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I am really excited about starting Equinox Families by offering birth doula services. One thing I think is great about doulas is that each one has a different personality and style of support. Some birthing people might want a very upbeat, cheerleader type to help them through labor while others would want someone with a more calming, ethereal presence.
There’s also definitely a perception out there that all doulas are super crunchy (whatever that even means) and while that’s true of some, I really think there’s a doula out there to fit every personality type. I’d say I’m solidly in the middle of the cheerleader to ethereal spectrum and am most likely to try to diffuse tough moments with some slightly dark humor. With my background as a scientist and educator first, I think I’m a good fit for folks who are analytical and like having data to help inform their decisions.
Something I’m working on right now is forming a collective with other doulas of Northern Utah. We are each maintaining our own individual businesses and practices but will be one another’s go-to for backup support, referrals, and professional development. We plan to collaborate to host outreach events for local birthing people and get together to help process birth experiences to prevent burnout.
I have really loved discovering how supportive the doula community is not only of birthing people but of other birth workers as well. All the other doulas I’ve networked with really just want to see one another succeed because that just means there are more people out there with a better shot at positive birthing experiences!
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
I lived in a house in New Hampshire from when I was about 8-12 that backed right up to woods with wild trail networks that connected in twisty-turns ways to all the other houses in the neighborhood. The street was all duplexes and at least one side of all of them had a kid in the same age range as me.
We would spend all day on those trails building forts, binging on blueberries, making fairy houses, and who even knows what else. I don’t think I remember ever seeing anyone’s parents out on those trails and even though we were probably always within earshot of one of the houses it felt like this wildland just ruled by children.
It was a really beautiful time right before cell phones and the internet started to become a dominant force. However, I do also have fond memories of going to the house of that one friend with a computer at the time to sing along with the dial-up internet noises as we waited to check on our Neopets.
Pricing:
- Complete Labor Support (includes all other services + in-person support throughout active labor and delivery) – $1000
- Prenatal Labor Coaching – $180
- Text Support – $30/mo
- Postpartum Support – $120
Contact Info:
- Email: doula@equinoxfamilies.com
- Website: www.equinoxfamilies.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/equinox.families/
