The Origin Story: How a Nanny Job and a Book Changed Everything

On curiosity, calling, and the moment everything clicked.

What led you to become a postpartum doula?

Honestly? Curiosity.

I wasn't sure I was meant to be a parent. I didn't fully understand what modern parenthood even looked like — the relationships, the transitions, the reality of it all. And I wanted to find out.

During the pandemic, the food industry was completely upended. I found myself in a state of flux, between jobs, reimagining what was next. A dear friend mentioned someone was looking for a nanny.

My immediate response was — I don't... not nanny. As in, I can hang with a toddler. I can show up and show out. How hard could it be? And with that, I said yes.

That experience cracked something open in me.

Around the same time, another friend suggested I read The First Forty Days — a book about nourishing new mothers. She mentioned I might consider becoming a postpartum doula.

I didn't even know what a postpartum doula was.

When I found out -- that there was an entire profession dedicated to supporting families through one of the most intense, vulnerable, transformative transitions of their lives — I was genuinely moved that this existed.

And when I started reading that book, I remember this feeling. Like a tingling across my skin. A pull from somewhere deep. This was the next step.

Between my professional culinary training and this profound desire to show up for families — to provide nutrient-dense meals, to support birthing parents as they mend after the intensity of birth — it just became a calling.

Not a career pivot. A calling.

What did you not expect about this work when you first started?

Two things — and they surprised me equally.

The first was the intimacy.

I knew going into someone's home would feel personal. But I wasn't fully prepared for just how tender that space is. A new baby. A raw, vulnerable, wide-open mother. A partner trying to figure out their new role. Everyone is soft and exposed in those early days in a way that you rarely witness as an outsider.

You're not just entering a home. You're entering a sacred moment in a family's story. And sitting with that — really honoring it — was something I had to learn to hold with a great deal of care.

You're not just entering a home. You're entering a sacred moment in a family's story.

The second thing I didn't expect was how profoundly under-supported new parents are.

Not just birthing parents — everyone. Finding reliable, grounded, professionally certified childcare is genuinely hard. Not everyone lives near family or community anymore. Health questions go unanswered. Resources are scattered or nonexistent.

And the non-birthing parent? Almost completely forgotten. It is so under-acknowledged how much the non-birthing partner is also stepping into entirely new territory — and how few resources exist to support them through that transition.

Trans identifying families. Families that don't fit the traditional mold. The entire circle of people whose lives are quietly, profoundly reorganizing themselves around this new life — largely unseen and unsupported.

This work showed me that the village isn't just missing. In many cases, it was never rebuilt after it fell apart.

What keeps you passionate about supporting new families?

It's the impact in the day to day.

Something as simple as delivering a warm cup of hot cacao to a mom while she's nursing. That moment. That pause. That saying — someone thought about me today.

It's touching down while I'm cooking and asking — hey, how are you really doing? Creating space where she doesn't have to perform strength or have it together. Where she can just be honest.

It's knowing that the food I'm putting on that table is eating the rainbow. Nutrient-dense. Intentional. Delicious. I feel genuinely good about what I produce — and knowing that my food is helping a birthing parent's body feel held and cared for during one of the most demanding transitions of their life — that makes me feel whole.

I love cooking. I always have. But having my food be a part of someone's mending? That's something else entirely.

I love cooking. But having my food be part of someone's mending?

That's something else entirely.

And here's the bigger picture that keeps me going — this work is also about the future. When we nourish new parents properly — when we help them feel restored, alive, and present — we're giving their children something too. Parents who are awake to the emotional and physical needs of their family. Building those bonds, that attunement, that care from the very beginning.

Women do not have to do it all on their own. We have built these impossible expectations — that a new mother should simultaneously be building a small empire within her family, cooking every meal, managing the household, keeping everything running, all while staying intellectually alive and showing up emotionally for everyone around her.

That is too much. And somewhere along the way we started treating asking for help as weakness. It is not. It is wisdom.

You are allowed to be taken care of. You are allowed to say — I need support right now.

What does a postpartum doula actually do, day to day?

A postpartum doula has their ear to the ground.

It's a whole body awareness. It's coming to this work having done your own personal work first — so that you can show up as a grounded, nourishing presence in someone else's most vulnerable moment.

It means understanding what it truly feels like to be seen and heard. To hold space for the very real weight of being a mother in this world — navigating failing healthcare systems, failing childcare support systems, failing education systems. Not coming with all the answers. But sitting in that space with them. Holding it together with them.

And it's also the small things. The noticing.

Maybe mom makes a one-off comment — she loves mint. Her four year old is obsessed with chocolate. Her nine year old lights up for custard. You file that away. And the next time you come, you bring something. A little offering. A gift. Or maybe you make it while you're there and quietly add it to the day as a moment of joy.

That's the work. Noticing. Remembering. Showing up with that detail in hand and watching someone realize — she heard me. She really heard me.

See them. Hear them. Do the thing. Notice.