The Journey

I am counting down the days to i begin my course . In just over 2 months i will be a doula (in training ) . From that day onwards i will no longer be Laura - stay at home mum i will be Laura - stay at home mum and Doula .

I am terrified of what comes next -will anything come of it ? Will it be a few hundred pounds wasted ? Will i be able to handle the responsibility ? Will anyone like me enough to hire me ? What happens if alot of people want to hire me ?

I am clueless and a little lost but at the same time very excited .

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I have thought about doing a Doula course for a few years now , after much thought and reading i realised i was only covering for what i really wanted to do and that was midwifery. I was happy , i was content with that journey so i excitedly signed up on an access to midwifery course and got applying for university . Sadly over time i started to understand how difficult this was to be.

Midwifery is a tough course , you surrender 3 years of your life and while i know many who think it is worth it i am not sure if i feel it would of been - i am a wife and mother more than anything - could i really spend so much time away from my babies ?
It is also very , very difficult to get into and many University's have only a few places for each of the hundreds of applicants.
Then if you do manage to make it through the 3 years jobs are hard to come by - i believe there is nothing in Scotland at all.

These 3 things alone were not enough to change my mind , after all i like a challenge and i was confident i would be able to spend time with my family still .

But the more i read about the course , the more i talked to people studying it and even the more i watched births i started to realise i don't want that . I don't want to be stuck in a hospital following strict guidelines , i don't want to be over stretched and not really able to help . I want home births , i want natural births , i want babies at breasts and plenty of cuddles.

This was enough to bring me full circle and i finally understood i was not settling for being a Doula - it was to me the perfect profession .

This clarity was amazing , i was able to stop the access course i was doing (which frankly was very expensive and difficult to get through) and instead pick up some courses i enjoyed doing (Both an Open University course and a Mother Supporter one with the Association of breastfeeding mothers) . I spent time researching different organisations i could do the training with -in the end Nurturing Birth seemed to call to me - the training course sounded perfect and it was registered with Doula UK and provided plenty of support during and after . The biggest problem was no courses in my area but i could wait...and wait i did . When they announced a course in Glasgow for April i was over joyed but soon deflated when i realised we could not afford it . My lovely sister took it into her own hands though and mentioned this to my parents and my dad was more than happy to pay for it - i will be forever grateful to all of them .

So now i am waiting , i am doing my pre course modules and working on my Open University work. I am reading and hoping to be accepted to become a breastfeeding councillor . I am most of all excited - this is the first time in many years i am doing something just for me and it makes me smile just thinking about it

(Honestly though i am not 100% sure i am done with Midwifery , i would love to become an Independent Midwife but would still have to get in and do the 3 years training first . I am planning more Open University modules to give me the necessary qualifications to get in and i may apply once they are done. If the Doula business takes off i may not feel the need but for the moment i am keeping my options open)