Today we’d like to introduce you to Katharine Deeb.
Hi Katharine, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
I’m a certified birth doula from Los Angeles, now based in Jacksonville. I have always been a big city girl, even though I grew up in Tallahassee. I moved out to L.A. when I was twenty-one with a retail fashion background. When I became pregnant with my first child in the nineties, I knew nothing about pregnancy or birth. I took Bradley Method childbirth classes and read as much as I could find (which wasn’t much).
I was lucky. I had a great unmedicated hospital birth with an incredible OB. She deeply impacted me- she was steady, safe, and supportive with a hands-off approach to labor. A few years later, I had my second son with a wonderful nurse in labor and delivery who happened to be a U.K. midwife. I thought a lot after the births of my sons about the support I had received in my labors, and coming from a family with many medical professionals, nurse midwifery came on my radar. I was a single parent by then, though, and my sons were young, so the idea of going back to school and then being on-call seemed too daunting. Birth didn’t come back onto my radar for another decade when friends started having children, and the word “doula” kept coming up. I saw the film “The Business of Being Born” in 2008 and was intrigued. I took my DONA birth doula training in 2009 and soon after found my first clients. I assumed that becoming a doula would be a segue for me into midwifery, but I soon realized I wasn’t interested in being a care provider. It wasn’t where my heart was.
The pandemic in Los Angeles was an extremely challenging time, personally and professionally. We could not attend hospital births for many months and were scrambling to pivot and change how we supported families as doulas. I had to learn to support many of my hospital clients virtually; prenatal meetings and interviews were often over Zoom, and it was a steep learning curve for me. I even worked with some people outside of California as a virtual doula, and that was an entirely new but fulfilling experience.
Later in the year, my younger son relocated to South Florida. When he called to let me know he and his partner were having a baby and needed me, I decided to uproot my life of 30+ years and head back to my home state. It was a huge honor to be there for my own family! They loved North Florida and later decided to make Jacksonville their home, so I came along. It has been quite a year of huge change.
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?
Starting out, I had no idea what it meant to be a birth worker. I had never even witnessed a birth before starting this work. It has been eye opening as to what it means to be entrusted to support a family this way, not to mention navigating the logistics of being on call 24/7. Trying to find some balance still challenges me. In Los Angeles, most of my clients came from word-of-mouth and repeat families, and I was grateful to be quite busy, so starting over in a new place and rebuilding an entire practice and birth community has been very humbling. My strength is not in marketing or self-promotion.
I have learned so much about myself in the last decade- where my blind spots and weaknesses are, where I shine. My phone is rarely turned off. Travel is deeply important to me, and it isn’t easy to plan out time to travel. Scheduling clients still feels tricky after all these years. Birth is wildly unpredictable! Babies (usually) come when they want to. I wish I could take 5-6 clients a month like some doulas, but I figured out it doesn’t work for me.
I experience growing pains every couple of years, where I become compelled to dig deeper. It forces me to stay honest with myself. During lockdown in California, I had no choice but to rest and slow down; there was a real gift in that lesson. I have been through quite a lot, and I feel like my life experience and my 13+ years in the birth world have given me a lot of perspective, wisdom, and empathy to bring to the table.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us a bit more about your business?
I was fortunate to have built a busy practice, supporting over 400 families in Los Angeles. Here in North Florida, I plan to keep going and look forward to providing prenatal, labor, and birth support for families in Jacksonville and the surrounding areas. I attend hospital births, birth center births, and homebirths. I support families choosing cesareans or births with epidurals or needing hospital inductions. There is this erroneous idea that doulas are just for unmedicated births or homebirths.
While I deeply love supporting homebirths and birth center births, I feel like my hospital families navigating the medical industrial complex and outdated policies need doula support the most- there are more interventions, choices to make, outcomes to process.
My “work” is to educate and hold space for birthing families and support, without bias, all family structures. I want my clients to have a positive, informed birth experience where they feel safe, supported, and heard, regardless of their birth outcome.
I also offer childbirth education, pregnancy consultations for those who want prenatal support only, and virtual doula support to families anywhere in the world.
I am planning to do an online doula mentorship with an incredible doula friend in Los Angeles, looking at early 2023 for that to start up. I wish support like that had been available when I started this path! Being a doula is my calling. I love women and families, the rawness of birth, the vulnerability, intimacy, and renewal of it. I love holding space for these families as they navigate so much new change. There is nothing quite like it.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Leaving the life I had created in Los Angeles was one of the riskier moves I’ve made. Stepping away from all you’ve known for decades into the unknown is scary. I also knew I would be unhappy as a part-time grandparent in another state. I had no choice but to believe I could figure it out somewhere new without my wonderful friends, the community and network in the birth world I had spent years creating and nurturing, and the family members I left behind. It’s been a true leap of faith for me, and I’m open to seeing where this chapter takes me.
Pricing:
- Please contact me regarding fees.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dareallalucedoula.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dareallalucedoula/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dareallalucedoula
Image Credits
Rebecca Coursey – @rebeccacoursey_photosandfilm
Lauren Guilford – @laurenguilfordbirths
