Today we’d like to introduce you to Haley Garza.
Hi Haley, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Hi, I’m Haley! A little about me and what drives me to be the support every family needs: When I was younger I had this vision of how I would become a momma, how the pregnancy would go, how the birth would be so peaceful and naturally in the water. When I got pregnant at 16 all of my visions were halted and it immediately became someone else’s vision that was coming to life. I was not able to have a water birth at the time due to ‘my age’, I now know that’s absurd. I was also convinced by my medical team that an epidural was what I needed and Pitocin was administered prior to any explanation of what it would do or how my body could react to it.
The whole birth was out of my control, or so I thought. It wasn’t peaceful. It was nowhere near natural. I was sad, defeated, and unhappy with how things had gone. I thought for sure that with my next baby, I would have my voice heard. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case either. The provider I had at the time pushed an induction, and despite trying so hard to advocate for myself, all of my desires fell on deaf ears. I was heartbroken. He was supposed to be my last baby, and I never got the “dream birth” I had so longed for.
Years had passed, and I had just accepted this was how it was. I convinced myself this was just the norm. Especially after hearing so many other mothers’ birth stories and learning that they, too, weren’t able to choose for themselves. I had gone on to become a pre-k teacher and went through the nursing program.
I was happy, content, and soon after, I met my now husband. Life was moving swimmingly, and then it wasn’t. I realized I wasn’t doing what I wanted with my life, I wasn’t happy, and this wasn’t where I was meant to be. I knew a hospital setting made me happy, I knew babies made me glow with joy, I knew helping others brought me peace like nothing else, and I knew nursing and teaching were no longer where I was supposed to serve and dedicate my time. I took a year off from working. And one year to the week, I enrolled in the DONA doula program.
Two hours into my course, I felt it in my bones. THIS WAS IT. I was home. My soul was happy. Through the course and speaking with other fellow doulas and my trainer, I came to realize that I had my own birth trauma, that during my births I had been taken advantage of, that I had my voice muted, and NONE of that was okay. I became a doula to save other mothers from experiencing the birth trauma I once endured, to show other mothers that the birth they want is the birth they deserve.
In 2022, I chose to help a couple welcome a little baby into their lives, but this time not as a doula; I had become their surrogate. In May of 2023, with the help of my husband, my wonderful doula, and the incredible hands-off support of my birthing team at Full Circle and St. Vincent’s, I was able to heal my birth traumas and give birth to a healthy, beautiful baby girl. As a doula, I can truthfully and wholeheartedly say hiring a fellow doula and having a birthing team that not only supports you but truly believes in you and your power is not only worth it but necessary. As a doula, it is at the core of who we are to be peace. To bring strength and encouragement. Every mother deserves a doula at her birth. As a photographer it is my honor to forever capture moments that are once in a lifetime.
That’s my story
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I grew up in the trenches of the church. Raised by a heavy hand in religion and a priest who was also my grandfather. The principals of the Catholic Church were at the core and forefront of my home. Things like sex before marriage, abortion, speaking on depression and being anything less than perfect we’re absolutely looked down on and I was always made to feel that making decisions that went against the main stream of the church were a no go and that if I wasn’t small, quiet and meek I was not doing right by god or my family.
At 14 my parents made me go back and live with them, in their drug filled home full of noise, unorganized chaos and violence. A year of this and we ended up in foster care. My parents pled the courts to not allow my brother and myself to return to my grandparents so into the system we went and remained for a year. This was a drastic change from anything I had known for majority of my life.
No more church.
No more stability.
No more calm.
I rebelled. Hard.
I was convinced by my new found peers that the church was a hell and I didn’t need to believe all of the things I spent my whole life learning. I was told that at 15 years old I could make my own choices for my own body. Dating wasn’t a sin. Sex before marriage was normal. Everyone was doing it, and if I wasn’t I was weird. I fell into the pressure of fitting in. After all the changes I was going through in my life away from anyone I had ever known I just wanted to feel seen, I wanted to feel normal, I wanted friends and I wanted to fit in.
Just before my 16th birthday I was placed back into the home of my parents. They had become clean, were in recovery and the courts found it safe for us to return. it lasted 5 months before the chaos crept back in. In the mean time I was practicing all of the things I had learned while away from my family. Thriving in my self made chaos to drown out the chaos of my home. Just before I turned 17 I fell pregnant. My parents kicked me out. I was allowed to move back in with my grandparents again because my parents said this was their responsibility.
Nothing made sense to me.
Im 16. Pregnant with a child I’m not ready for and have a future I had already worked so hard for, I was on track to graduate high school early. I was dually enrolled into college. I had BIG plans for my future and I feared this would change everything. The guilt piled on heavy. How would I raise this baby? How would I finish school? Would I be a good mom? How will I do this alone? Is there someone better for this baby than me? I wasn’t given options. I was told I had to do this or I would be turned away from my family and removed from the church. I was going to be a mother regardless of how I felt.
I suddenly found myself in a deep hole I couldn’t come out of. I prayed every day for god to just make it be okay. To tell me the way to make this happen. I was certain I wasn’t supposed to be this boys mom. But life had other plans. My pregnancy continued, I was growing a healthy, beautiful, big baby boy. I spent my whole pregnancy uncontrollably fearful of our future. I was depressed. I was anxious. I shut the world out and focused on school because I had nothing else.
I graduated from college two weeks before I graduated high school. Pregnant.
I walked the stage at both graduations. Pregnant.
I didn’t know how I was going to do it, and I cried my weight in tears. But we made it.
I had no control over anything in my life except my education. So I clung to that like my whole life depended on it.
I was 17 when I had my first baby. Nothing about his birth went to planned. I had no advocate. Just a bunch of adults who should have supported my choices that were too consumed with their own feelings and excitement to worry about my fears, wants and concerns regarding the child they made sure I gave birth to and raised. I was scared. I was hurting. I was angry. I was deeply depressed. And I had birth traumas that took me YEARS to mend and understand.
I spent many years of my life trying to find my home. I have three college degrees, two of which I no longer use. I tried teaching, I was a nurse, and none of it felt like home to me. And through all of that I held onto all of the pain from when I was 17. I held on because I didn’t understand. I couldn’t make sense of it.
At 29 my life flipped on its head. My husband who served 20 years in the marine corps retired and we were moving, so I quit my job as a trauma nurse and prayed for an answer as to what I was supposed to do with my life.
It’s always felt like these tiny invisible strings were pulling me towards my heartache and I could never understand why. I’d spend hours upon hours with anyone I knew that was pregnant or had just had a baby, just holding the moms. Supporting them. Guiding them. Listening to them. Allowing vulnerability that I was never afforded in my pregnancy and postpartum periods. Later the next year my sister called to tell me she was pregnant and her first request was that I be in the room. The only problem was that the hospital only allowed two support people…. And a doula. Her mom and sons father were going to be there and so I did what needed to be done. I became a doula. I never enrolled in a class so fast. At first it was just to support her, I never imagined it would be what it’s become. But after sitting in the course over that week, and after attending my sisters birth and supporting her through her first labor, her first birth and her first postpartum period I felt home. For the first time in my life I actually felt like I was home. I have been a doula for two years now, I have supported many families during all phases of parenthood. Moms who are struggling to get pregnant. First time parents, 4th time parents, loss moms and dads, happy postpartum homes, postpartum depression and psychosis homes and so many more small things in between. In becoming a doula I found my reason for being
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
This job is fulfilling in so many ways. And in doing this I (we) as doulas are able to bridge that gap between the mom I was at 17 scared, Alone, depressed and fearful and the moms we help today to feel empowered, fearless, strong and confident. It’s moms like ME that will benefit from these services. Moms like my mentor and friend Christin at Doulas of Jax who suffered for a YEAR with PTSD from her traumatic birth in SILENCE because nobody checked in on her to ask if she was okay or needed an ear to listen or simply just a hug and a you’re gonna make it. It’s for the moms with three under three who just need to know they aren’t alone when they’re in the trenches with the stomach flu thinking this is the end. It’s for the moms who have no support system here that have a spouse deployed. It’s for the fathers who just lost their wife in childbirth and have no idea how they will make it alone. The goal is to make a difference in the lives of all the families who need our support and don’t get it because they cannot afford it or aren’t aware they have access to it.
What makes you happy?
I grew into the woman before you now—a doula, a mother, an advocate, and someone still healing and growing.
I’m an also a surrogate.
I’ve carried two children that are not mine. And I’ve never felt more honored.
Some people ask why?
Why carry a baby for a stranger? Why choose discomfort, sacrifice, and risk for someone you don’t even know?
The answer is simple: because I can.
Because there was a time I was told I didn’t have a choice.
Because there are families out there holding onto hope with trembling hands, praying for the one thing I’ve been so blessed to do with relative ease: carry life.
Becoming a surrogate has only deepened my love and respect for birthwork. It has taught me that love doesn’t begin at delivery. It begins in decision. And it deepens with devotion. It lives in the spaces between ultrasounds, in the quiet car rides after appointments, in the tiny kicks that remind you that you’re part of something much bigger than yourself.
This journey—just like my journey into motherhood, into doula work, into healing—has never been just about me. It’s about every mother who’s ever felt alone. Every family who didn’t get to take a baby home. Every father learning to swaddle through tears. Every mother who whispers “I’m not okay” behind a brave smile.
The postpartum period is not a season to survive. It’s a sacred threshold that deserves reverence, support, and community.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Thehumbleddoula.com
- Instagram: The humbled doula
