DONA Training = Life Changing
This past weekend I attended my DONA International training workshop. This course included my DONA workshop, childbirth education and lactation courses which are all required education to gain my doula certification. I spent four full days in a room full of twenty women and I can tell you right now that never in my life have I done that! This group of women was so beautifully diverse in personalities and backgrounds as well as cultures! Even with so much uniqueness in the room we all had one thing in common and that is the love and passion to help mothers through the life changing experience that is birth. The long weekend experience was eye opening, educational, inspiration and emotional like you wouldn’t believe!
I personally was completely out of my comfort zone as I rarely get out of the house. I have four kids and husband at home, so spending a long weekend with twenty total strangers was quite an experience. The content of the course and the people involved were all so interesting and inspirational that I was fully invested in everything my educator, Jessica, had to say and the time flew bye. I really feel the weekend has changed me as a person. I have gained so much knowledge and the fire inside me has grown exponentially to share this knowledge with every pregnant woman I meet! Jessica has so much experience and passion that it really just confirmed for me that I am doing what I was put here to do. I have found my purpose in life, imagine how that feels! I want to help women have the labor and delivery they wish to have! I want to help reform my local hospital as Jessica has reformed hers. I want everyone and every mother to know that birth is totally natural, it was something our bodies were made to do and we CAN do it. Every mother has every right to make every decision in her birthing process and I want to be there help ensure she remembers her birth in the best way possible.
Not only was the course so educational and inspirational but I bonded with those women in a way that is hard to describe. As personal birth stories were shared, we took on each other’s pain, sadness and joy in different ways. The power of everyone having one thing in common, the desire to help women have a positive birth experience, really connected the whole room together. The women in the room truly have a passion for helping the world be a better place. The birthing experience is so powerful for a mother and we all want to help more women have a better birthing experience. This is a process of transforming where the medical world stands on birth today. We want to take birth back to the way it should be, empower women to make their own decisions and give their consent before any medical intervention. Mothers remember this experience it can mold who they are as a mother and they should be the only one in control.
The overall experience was amazing and emotional and something I will never forget, that’s for certain! I cannot wait to share this knowledge with every client that comes my way! I strive to ensure that every birth I attend, I can know in my heart that I made better in some way and it all will come back to this training!
With Love,
Brooke Elizabeth
