I am a new doula. Still waiting to attend my first birth. The waiting is killing me! I volunteer at Family Health and Birth Center in DC and I'm on call once or twice a week. And the phone never rings. Seriously. It's killing me! I have some clients lined up for the spring and summer, and a number of potential clients with whom I'm interviewing, so it's just a matter of time...but I am really getting impatient.
So I'm trying to use this time to do the reading required for my certification, going to workshops to gain new skills and techniques, trying to really crystallize my philosophy and bring my reasons for going into this line of work into sharper focus.
The main thing I have been struggling with is how much to charge clients for my services during my training. I know from experience that people don't tend to value that which they have gotten for free. "It was free, so I didn't mind missing it." "Well, it's not like I paid for it, so...", etcetera, etcetera. I have even had a few potential clients just blow me off completely, assuming that because I am not charging for my services, they must not be worth anything. A few times the conversation has come to a complete, awkward halt when I tell them I am not charging them for what will likely be a great deal of time and effort on my part.
This is a problem I have dealt with my entire adult life, since I repeatedly find myself in employment situations that require me to name my price or set the monetary value for my own time. I have gotten better at it as my experience in the field has grown and I have learned that my time is in fact worth charging for. Coming from a theatre background, I know it is so hard to get a living wage because so many actors would do what they do for nothing simply because they love it. The more people offering services for free or extremely low cost, the less the service is valued by society. This doing a disservice not only to myself, but all my sister doulas - who have embraced and supported me in a truly doula-like way since I made the decision to enter the world of the birth worker.
And yet...I keep coming back to providing free services for a time. This doesn't gel well with the fact that I need to earn a living. But I can't shake the feeling it needs to be done, and I finally figured out why.
My two births were just wonderful. Peaceful. Quiet. Gentle. Natural. At my daughter's birth, I was attended by two nurse midwives. At my son's birth, I had one nurse midwife and one student CPM. Besides the fact that they are highly trained and extremely skilled at what they do, they treated me with respect. They listened to me. They answered my questions. They calmed my fears. They encouraged me. During my births they were gentle, patient, encouraging, funny, down to earth. Yes, I paid for their services. But I paid for their skills and training. I paid for the opportunity to give birth at home. The rest was their passion for birth and their dedication to making sure that I got the birth experience I wanted. I got more than money could ever buy - two beautiful home births, and a deep well of confidence in the power of my own body.
So, in honor of my midwives, I am paying it forward. I'm doing my karma doula work. Three births, free of charge, in honor of those three amazing women. When I offered my free services with this explanation, it felt right. And suddenly, the fact that I wasn't charging because I was paying forward a deeply appreciated gift made my services seem not less worthy, but more. These women I am serving are also giving me a gift - letting a brand new doula attend their birth is an incredible honor and a leap of faith on their part. Another gift I will never be able to repay. I wish I could just be a karma doula and serve those who couldn't otherwise afford it, but I do eventually have to make a living. So I will have to make do with my three karma births and then bring that spirit of service to the women I serve.
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