Today we’d like to introduce you to Tracy Hartley.
Hi Tracy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I first heard the word “doula” while watching The Today Show for the traffic report. It was 1996 and there was no GPS or Google maps or Waze. Just the morning news and traffic report. Two minutes into a brief segment on doulas, I knew I was going to change my career. First thing I did when I got home from work was to find a doula training and sign up. The next morning I gave six months’ notice at work. I was almost 50 years old and I loved my job but I knew I had found the perfect career. I have never regretted my hasty decision to become a doula.
The training ended on a Sunday and I got home with my head about to explode from all the information and my heart from the prospect of helping birthing families improve their experiences. I hadn’t even had a moment to think about dinner plans when the phone rang. It was my daughter calling to tell me that she was pregnant! It felt as if the Universe was confirming my decision!
Since then, I’ve been the doula at the births of all three of her babies, along with about 700 other peoples’ babies. I love each birth I attend and learn something new at every birth. If I ever attend a birth and don’t learn something new, it will be time to retire.
Before becoming a doula, I trained dogs for people with disabilities other than blindness for 18 years, I ran a word processing department, I was a bookkeeper, a peer counselor for Vietnam Veterans, and an Air Traffic Controller in the Navy. I feel as if I learned something from every job I’ve ever had that has helped me in my doula career.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
At the beginning of the Pandemic, hospitals stopped allowing doulas to attend births which, of course, severely impacted my ability to do my job. I pivoted to providing more in-depth childbirth preparation classes to help guide and encourage partners so that they could have a much better understanding of what their partner needed and how to help them through labor and then providing support virtually. I have been able to teach virtual classes and offer labor support for expectant and birthing families throughout the Pandemic and will continue to provide these virtual classes and services if and when there is an end to Covid.
Overcoming obstacles and challenges are a huge part of being a doula and I see them as learning experiences.
When I attend a birth, I’m on my feet for an average of 24 hours, my hands, arms and back aching from massaging and applying counter pressure to a laboring person’s lower back. I’ve been thrown up on, bled on, punched, bitten three times, yelled at, sworn at, and was accidentally head-butted by a laboring client who cracked my sternum. I’ve missed birthdays, anniversaries, movies, dinners, parties, time with my grandchildren and sleep – lots of sleep!
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
After 26 years and over 700 babies, I bring a wealth of experience to the table. I have a group of similarly experienced doulas I’ve worked with for many, many years and we back each other up so that if one of us is at a birth when another client goes into labor, the client will still get a very experienced doula with very similar beliefs and knowledge.
My childbirth preparation classes allow expectant parents to realize that they have control over their baby’s birth and their treatment during labor. I cover things in my class that most other childbirth educators don’t. I focus on empowering the pregnant person and their partner to be as prepared and knowledgeable as possible because I really want people to understand what their options are during a hospital birth. I rarely attend home births or birth center births because there is less interference and more comfort in those settings. I specialize in working in hospitals because I feel that that is where birthing people need the most support and information.
Many of the incredible birthing people I’ve worked with have discovered a strength inside them that they never knew existed and that they will have forever. I’ve witnessed the first breath, first sight, first cry, first taste of nourishment for hundreds of tiny humans. I’ve seen couples bond in a way that even they didn’t know was possible. I’ve seen men cry for the first time in their adult lives.
Much to the surprise and delight of the laboring person, I’ve helped hundreds of partners become totally involved in the birth of their child. I encourage the partner’s participation and help empower the couple so that by the time the baby is born, they are strong and bonded, working together to nurture their new baby.
Doctors and nurses have admitted that a client of mine would have had a cesarean delivery if I hadn’t been there to help the birthing person. I’ve had doctors and nurses say they had never seen a natural birth in their entire careers and that I’d changed forever their perspective on birth. The first time a nurse said she was amazed by the completely natural, unmedicated birth she’d just witnessed — her first in several years of being an OB/GYN nurse, I would have thought she was joking if she hadn’t been so obviously awestruck. The second time I heard it, I was even more surprised because I could no longer believe the first instance had been a fluke. And when a doctor said it, I knew that I was not only being a doula to my client but to all the birthing people these nurses and doctors would work with in the future. These medical personnel now believed that birth was possible without any medical intervention, and that belief, in itself, would help more of their patients believe in themselves.
Being a birth doula is an honor and a privilege. I feel so lucky to be allowed to become a part of another family, however briefly, during this most intimate and loving time in their lives.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
When I was pregnant, I assumed that I didn’t need to know too much about birth because there would be doctors and nurses there to help me and they were the experts. The reality is that the doctor may stop by once or twice during labor but really won’t show up until the baby is about to be born. The pregnant person might be in labor for 24 hours, which is the average length of labor for a first baby, and the doctor might be with them for an hour. The nurse will be with them a little longer but, in general, a nurse will be with them approximately 30% of the time that they’re there, but it won’t be the same nurse the whole time.
I also believed that the doctors and nurses were there to help me, but now I understand they are employees of the hospital and are there to do their jobs according to what their employer tells them to do them. They may want to help the pregnant person do what they want, but if it’s against “hospital policy” they are not going to risk their job to make the birthing person’s life or birth experience easier or better. The birth is potentially the most important and memorable day of the birthing person’s life. For their doctor and nurses, it’s just another day at work. It’s nothing special. They may be thinking about what to make for dinner, or their own child’s school issue, or their upcoming vacation plans. The birthing person’s happiness or satisfaction is not even on their radar. Their job is to do their best to make the hospital administrators happy and to hand the birthing person a live baby or babies, not to give them a satisfying experience.
Pricing:
- 30 minute consultation = free
- 90 minute introductory class = $100
- Series of 3 additional classes = $400
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bestdoulas.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bestdoulas/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/birthempowerment/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/best-doula-service-alhambra?osq=doula
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