A Doula for Everyone | Peaceful Birth Company pt. 1

This week I sat down with Peaceful Birth Company (PBC to the locals!), an incredible doula agency in Fort Collins, CO that I am very proud to be a part of!


Connect with PBC:
Instagram: @peacefulbirthcompany
Website: www.peacefulbirthcompany.com

Links and Resources:
Website: www.greatestjoydoula.com
Listen to the Birth Your Way Podcast 
on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/birth-your-way/id1891727848
and Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5XaaUhUPmPUB3497gTQSje
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@birthyourwaypodcast

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Transcript

0:08

Hello, welcome to the Birth Your Way Fort Collins podcast. I am so excited today to have the Peaceful Birth Company team here. We thought it'd be really fun to do a panel interview with one of the leading doula agencies in our community to talk about what PBC does, what's different about PBC from other agencies, and just tell us what you do and why you like to work with a group. Welcome all of you. I'd love for you all to go around and introduce yourself. Cool. I'm Katie Iango and I am the owner of Peaceful Birth Company. Also Doula. And a doula, childbirth educator, certified lactation counselor. Yes, include all your things. I'm Melissa O'Malley, a doula and childbirth educator with Peaceful Birth Company, and a mother, and I call myself a professional witch. I do all the witchy things. I'm Carly Neal. I'm a mother of five, an herbalist, a Waldorf-inspired caregiver, a doula, and yeah, part of the team. Yes. And I mean, I'm Danielle Stinger. I'm also a proud member of the PBC team. Trained by PBC, also do some of their childbirth education. So I'm just so excited to have part of the group here today. And it's really a large group. There's no way I could have gotten everybody in here, I don't think. It's hard to get us all in the same place at the same time. Stacked. And yeah, kudos to our team here for getting even the mic situation set up for how many of us are here today. And we will do this episode in two parts. We'll have another doula join us or part two, but we'd love to just kick it off talking about what is the goal and the purpose of Peaceful Birth Company. How did it come to be? I know Katie, you talked a little bit about this in your episode, but I'd love for you to just set the stage for what is the goal of Peaceful Birth Company? Yeah. And it's funny because I feel like the answer is a little different with like the the team mindset, right? Started it as just I wanted I wanted more people to have birth support who otherwise wouldn't be able to get it. Because I couldn't afford a doula when I had my two kids. And so it just felt like, oh, we can get this thing to people who otherwise can't get it. And then once you kind of cracked open that can of worms, so oh there's so many people who aren't getting what they need in this space and who are getting way overlooked and underserved. And so that ended up becoming the main focus from a team aspect too. We started with working with Salude, and that required more than just me. And so that was kind of the start of building a larger team and a more diverse team, people that could actually support and represent a different clientele. So that became the mission. I think it still is the mission, just getting both support and education to everybody, and especially to people who otherwise can't access it. In the same vein, being inclusive and welcoming and open-minded. And I think with the team model, that's so much more possible because we have more representation, more viewpoints, more time, more availability. And I think that's kind of my view of the mission. But I would love to hear, and I'm sure each of you has a different version of the mission within PBC too. If you want to share. Yeah, I was sitting with this question earlier, and what comes to mind is just community. I feel like we have a very diverse group of people in our collective. We all come from different backgrounds. Some of us speak more than one language. A lot of us are parents, some of us are not. And we've all worked in different careers leading up to this point. And I think every little piece plays a role in supporting the community. I've personally served a large portion of our Muslim community here in Fort Collins through Peaceful Birth Company, which has been such a beautiful and challenging thing as doula work is in general, getting past the language barriers. And that's what I think of as our number one goal. And I think having the diversity in our company allows us to be able to support the diversity in our community, which is super cool. So and another thing I kind of wanted to add to that is the inclusiveness too. I think as Peaceful Birth Company as being a very good collective group that can also serve that community, which is so important for our trans community and people that identify in different genders and things. And I feel like what's nice about our company is that we can serve the Muslim community, we can serve our LGBT community. And you want to be open and available to everybody. And I think that's the goal. And I think when we're thinking about different ideas, as we're growing and changing and morphing and moving forward, it's like how can we best serve the community? It's what we always come back to. How can we expand the community? Because I think that is the most important. And being in a group together, it's not just the birth, but we expand after the birth, right? We create circles and support groups. And I think we're always kind of trying to work together to do that. I think we've lost that. In general, over the years in society, there's become a lot of isolation of going inward and living in our boxes and our homes. And birth kind of pushes us to, oh, we need to, we need to come together. And so I think that's the goal. Yeah. That's what I think. A beautiful description of PBC. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so grateful to be a part of this because when I think of PBC, I also think of birthing justice and getting the education and the support to the people who need it most, as you echoed, and the community. You were saying there's such a community is such a pillar of PBC and really creating opportunities for people to come together and receive the support that they need. And I think something that's so special about what PBC is is that we can say you're safe here, you're safe here, but we can never really know what makes a person feel safe in a space. And I think the way the foundation from which PBC was built and the way that it operates in the community models that safety without trying to tell people that you're safe here. I hope that it feels inherently built in, baked into what PBC is. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with that. That's a good way to put it. Yeah, the only thing I would add, I tell people all the time, I didn't have a doula at either of my births. And I did think about it, but my hang-up with it was I had an issue with the commodification of birth. I was like, why do I have to pay all these people when all the books say my body was made for this? Like, why do I need to pay for all this support? And then once I had my babies, I was like, oh yeah, I know I get it. Definitely pay the people. My issue actually is a little bit more with capitalism than it is with actually that paying for doula. He kind of was able to delineate between the two. And I thought that Peaceful Birth Company really embodied and acknowledged that this cost is a barrier to access and found ways to go around that. Peaceful Birth Company has really led the way in making Medicaid cover doula support and offering sliding scale. And it just meant a lot to me, even though I have absolutely come to the conclusion at this point in time that I think dual is very important, very much worth investing in. People have different abilities to do that. And I think Peaceful Birth Company in its messaging and as Katie has built what it is today, it's just so apparent that Jewel has deserved to be compensated well and it needs to be accessible for everyone. Everyone deserves support. Absolutely. And I think it is an important thing to note that I think what's made PBC continue to have that foundation and those ethos is the team model. Like as much as I wish and wanted to just give these services to anybody who needed them. And to your point, there is livelihood, right? You have to be able to make a living. And I too hate the capitalization and the commodification of birth work, but at the same time you pay for so many things throughout your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey that you really don't need to spend money on. Whereas a doula can improve outcomes, reduce trauma, make you feel seen and safe and all those things. And so it's invaluable to me. And yet it's kind of considered somewhat of a luxury. And I think in order for us to package that messaging that you were saying that that it is accessible, I had to have people on this team that were willing to do births for a lesser rate and to take Medicaid. And not everybody is willing to do that, because you can make a lot of money doing this work if you do it the right way based on capitalism. Um and I think all of us just kind of agreed that we're doing this the right way based on serving the community the best way possible, and hopefully making enough to get by. But I think it's just an important note that this mission, these goals could never be achieved without every single person on the team. And what they bring to it and that agreement of that being the final thing that we want to get is to have our community served in the best way possible. Yeah, yeah. And you're kind of leaning into my next question for the group, really, which is what drew each of you to wanting to work in a collaborative in addition to having your own do it practice, which all of us do on the team. We all have our own individual LLCs and our own approach, which I think is another beautiful thing about PVC. All of us are quite different. We have this shared value set that I think we've shared already. But what drew each of you into working in a collaborative model in addition to running your own solo practice? Yeah, I would say that the work that we do, as much joy as it brings, it also brings a lot of heaviness. It can be very mentally taxing, emotionally taxing. And I never claimed to be a master of anything, right? So I'm always learning, I'm always growing and evolving. And so the idea of a collective felt very aligned for me because I knew that I could lean into these people and these women and learn from them and grow with them and process with them. And so that was the big thing for me is just being able to have people that I could collaborate with and process birth with or process prenatals or postpartum with or pick the brain. Oftentimes we're saying the hive mind, it's oh, do you know about this or not? Or and so it's it's this collective of sharing information and heart space and yeah, and almost for me over the years it's felt like more than just a job, it's felt like a sisterhood circle of just really having this tight-knit community, which I've really loved. Yeah. Yeah, it's so special when we are like, We're at a birth, we're at PVH, and everybody gets to send a little love and support and magic, and then how's the birth going? That is so meaningful to me because I can't imagine doing it any other way without having people to get support from and feedback and education when things come up and I'm like, oh no, I don't know. I have a team of people I can ask, and they probably know. Somebody knows. That is priceless. Yeah, there's just nothing like the PVC group chat. Yeah, really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's beautiful because it's work and it's birth work and it's what do we do here? How can we serve better? But it's also sisterhood. It's also it's we have we have the range. We have the range. That's the title of this episode. We have the range. I mean, I I think I kind of alluded to it a minute ago, but I was very lucky to get really busy with my doula work when I was solo around COVID time. And then it was like too busy. And just it was too much. And Abby was like shadowing my birth classes at the time, and I was like, hey, just plant the seed. If you ever want to be a doula, you should come join me. And then it the timing just worked out beautifully where she was able to join me to where I wasn't just drowning. She was able to back me up and take other births, and then another person joined the team, and then another person joined, and it just became this obvious breath of fresh air. Because to your point, this work can be really, really lonely in the joys and the grief of it, right? Come home from this ecstatic, beautiful birth, and it's so wonderful, and you're like your partner can only hear so much. Right. And like absorb it. And similarly, if you have some type of trauma or hard experience, just having that alone with people that don't get it is really, really hard and isolating. And so, yeah, gosh, having a team that you can pick their brain, you can share your struggles, you can lean on them for backup support, you can yeah, just the the cliche of holding space. I feel like the PVC team just has this space, this container where we all get to just do this work in community and in sisterhood and not just be floating along. But it was really important to me when I started building the team was that everybody kept their own LLCs and still was able to do their own individual work because I used to work at New Belgium and when I worked there, one of their biggest things was teaching people how to start their own businesses because that's a very sustainable long-term way for the community to thrive. And so I feel like that's true too. It doesn't need to be all within PBC. The goal is the same, even if you all are doing it in your own practices, right? And then that empowers all of us. Nobody's reliant on PVC. You all get to learn how to run the things and and lean into what you want to in your own business and what you don't want to, and you can lean toward PVC for that. So I think it is it is really, really special. And I think it's different than a lot of other groups or agency or collectives because I mean to be honest, I I say this all the time, but we were building the plane as we flew it because we got so busy so quickly. And so now I feel like I'm doing a lot of re-reassessing the plane. Okay. It's flying, but there's things that we can fix to help support the team, support the community. And so it's kind of nice. I think we're in this new season of the collective, of the group, where it's oh now we can fine-tune-tune it. We can like make it the best it can be for us, for the community, and for our clients. So it's been a ride. Like, well, turbulent, right? As it is, I think, when you're running a business and it's new. Yeah, you make mistakes, you learn the hard way. Um, and then really the whole goal is just to try and do better and try to make it work better, try to be a better person in it. And that's constantly evolving. Like you said, we're always trying to learn and do better, and I think we're doing that. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, from a values perspective, I loved working with the collective because this project is evidence of just how much I believe community has a role in birth. I think that's what I really took away from not having a doula at my births. They were beautiful, I loved them, I'm so proud of them. And then I was like, oh, I can really see why and the role the birth team plays. That's true for doulas as well. Um we need each other, and no matter how much I know about birth, it's not possible for me to know more than the group of us. Totally. Because we all have these different experiences, we all have different passions and perspectives and our own birth experiences. It's wonderful. It's beautiful to be able to learn from each other. I think it makes us better supporting people in the community in their own births, that we have that hive mind together. Yeah. And then from a practical perspective, I think when people are looking to hire a doula, if they're part of a collective or they're at least connected to a group of other doors, you have really, really strong backup. That was what I was gonna say. From a practical standpoint, yeah. It's great for the doula, it's great for the client. Yeah, I mean, before I was on a team, it was like I'd be at births for days. Days. I'd be like sleeping on hospital floors or in hallways, and that's not the best way to serve our clients. I wasn't showing up the best. And it I do think it's a misconception people have with a group model, is that you're not gonna get that more one-on-one care. But I think with PVC, you get a primary doula that's still your main doula. But if for some reason that person isn't able to serve you the best way that they can, they're too tired, they're sick, life happens, whatever. You have such a great team of people with shared values and shared training that makes and trust. Yeah, we all trust each other. Yeah. That's the I think that's the really important thing, is I feel very comfortable choosing anybody on the team. And there's certain doolas where it's like, oh, this doodle will fit with this client maybe better. Um when that happens, that's great. But what a privilege to be able to cherry pick from this team to be like, well, I know it would be great, but this person specializes in this thing and or has this sense of humor. It's really neat. We can kind of we can handpick for our clients to really serve them in the best way. And that's one of my favorite things to do is do that matchmaky piece. Yeah. When I do a consultation with somebody and I'm like, oh my god, I can see Alyssa would be your favorite for sure. It's fun to kind of have those glimpses because I know the team so well that I can kind of get to know these clients and find good fits. So yeah. Yeah, that's true. Katie's a good matchmaker, which we're gonna hire through PBC, Katie will meet with you and be able to suggest. I'm curious for someone who's never hired a doula before or is like considering hiring one of you and they see that you're a PBC Doula, can you kind of speak to the difference between if they were just to contact you directly through your own business versus coming to you through PBC? What would be the difference for somebody going through that process? I was sitting with that one earlier too, and it's interesting because I show up the same either way. I'm gonna show up the same, I'm gonna support you the same. With PBC, depending on my clients. Certain clients, there's certain things that come through for me that I do special for certain clients and other clients where I'm like, yeah, that won't vibe with them. For instance, maybe it's just an herbal foot soak bath during a prenatal visit. Um, but I always show up supporting the same. I think the main difference is just my packages maybe look different, right? I maybe have different add-ons of different things I do that they could pay me for, like placenta art or a customizable herbal product or something. There might be some extras thrown in. But the way that I show up will generally it'll be the same. Yeah, I was thinking the same, that like, yeah, I have my practice and how I show up is the same no matter how you hire me. But with when you're going through Peaceful Birth Company, you have the opportunities for the childbirth education. And that's that's huge. That's massive. We include that in the packages. Which is huge. Yeah, because I don't have that in my package. Right, yeah. Right. And I wouldn't be able to offer that to every client individually. So that is, I think that's priceless. And I I think that does we that's a unique thing to PBC. And it was it was a hard learned lesson to not have it. And it was just all of a sudden we had clients who declined taking a childbirth class, doulas showing up at births, having to educate in real time in really high stress moments or high intensity moments. And it was harder for the client, it was harder for the doula, it was just harder. And so across the board we figured out just including it and just saying, listen, you you don't have to take it, but we really recommend it because now you have shared language, you have information, you have all these things that are gonna reduce trauma in the birth. And it doesn't greatly increase our prices. Like we're still comparable to other prices in the community, but you also get this really comprehensive six-week childbirth class too. I think that is what I would say is probably the biggest benefit of going through PBC is yeah, the class. And then I think we're like the community, the connections, the resources, the uh meetups that we have, and anybody can come to those. So I think it's important to note that honestly, however you find your doula is the way you find your doula. It doesn't really matter which avenue you get them from, but I do trust that if you find yourself going through PBC, there's probably a reason and there's probably some connection there that you need. I think logistically, I think it just kind of people end up where they end up. If they come through PBC, that's the only thing is that we do ask that the doula's will then take them through PBC if that's how they entered. It's just kind of like a general agreement we have. But other than that, I don't think it's much different. You're gonna get a great doula anyway, no matter what way you go. So that's neat. Yeah. Lucky for our killer. I know. Yeah. And you spoke into this already, but like someone's looking at the PBC Doula group versus any other doula group, what would you say makes the difference with PBC? I think it does always come back to community and the birth justice side of things. I've said this as long as I've been in this work that rising tides flow at all ships. So the fact that we have multiple doula groups in our community is awesome. I think it's so great. Uh, more the merrier. And I think if somebody is interviewing different places, I think they would probably lean toward PVC because of that feeling of safety, birth justice, inclusivity. And then really that we our goal is to we say hand them into community. It's like we are really trying to support them through this unique little season and then create systems for them to have more sustainable community in an organic way. And I think that is probably the biggest thing that sets us apart. Just kind of having a lot of angles for people to get support and community. Yeah, and I think it just kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier of just the complexity and diversity of our group. Yeah, that's true. We just have such a diverse group and we all come from different walks of life, and so because of that, we're able to support so many different individuals, which I think is so important. Yeah. We're also really fun. That is true. Really fun with humiliation. Absolutely. Well, I've already answered this. The biggest benefit that families experience when they hire a doula through our group. Is it mainly the access to community? I think there's that. I also think that we built our own doula training over years of myself doing multiple doula trainings and just getting all that continued education and realizing I didn't feel like there was a training in our community, in our state, that fully encompassed all the things that it would be beneficial for a doula to know, then to go out into the community. So myself and Abby and Chelsea, who used to be on the team, created this doula training that we've been able to grow and morph throughout the years. And now every dua on the team has gone through that training. And so we all have this really shared base knowledge that's way more comprehensive than most doulas get, I think, just by the more common doula trainings. So that's something that I'm really proud of and I think is a huge benefit to our clients is that every doola has an in-depth training, not just of like hip squeezes and breathing techniques. It's yeah, it's trauma-informed care. It's learning about loss. It's learning about microaggressions. It's such a larger picture than I think what a lot of doula trainings give. So I think that's a huge benefit. The duration is longer than most Doula trainings as well. It's long and it's it's a lot more like human and real and unfiltered and unique and pinpointed to our community, which is neat too, right? We have guest speakers that come from the clinics and hospitals in town or there are other birth services in the area. And so I think it's really neat a neat way to get this hyperlocation of a training that is still also able to be used outside of just the local area. Yeah. I think that's a big benefit. Absolutely. Yeah when I was looking at doula trainings I had met with Katie. I originally I do still want to be a midwife eventually. But Katie was like you could be a doula first there's trainings that you can do in a weekend there's trainings that you can do online. But what I loved about PBC in addition to the values we've already mentioned here was that it was very local. I'm like this these are the people that I want to serve so it would be it would make sense to learn from them. The people who are already here and these are the people I'm going to be working with. I think that is really unique and special. Yeah. Yeah and yes once you've complete the training you can take Medicaid, TRICARE CHP A lot of major insurance companies acknowledge that it's a good training which is I think unique too. I think a lot of the other trainings are done by these really big national organizations and we managed to weasel our way into there and like no you created a great training I got approved. I'm really proud of that training and then proud of the fact that every dual on the team has done it and and doolas not on the team that are out in the community have taken it and so I think that's a pretty cool part of it. Yeah. Yeah. Are there any kind of shared beliefs about birth that we have on the team you'd say I often say that to people when they're like I want to find a doula who's the best doula it's like well what are you looking for what are your beliefs about birth and you want to find someone that really aligns. Would you say there's any shared values if they're coming to a PBC doula that we have about birth. I think I'll answer it with what I hope everybody listen. And then I think obviously you'll each have your own version of that. It doesn't have to be this but I think my hope I got into this work I think a little bit skewed of thinking like natural is the best or whatever. Whatever my own biases were coming into it. And having done so many births at this point I think I've learned and I'm trying to communicate that the type of birth does not matter. None of us dualists should care about what type of birth somebody's ha having or planning on having or has it's more about how they feel about the birth that they had. And so I think the only way to ensure that somebody feels really good about their birth is that they're like informed and about their options, about what they're consenting to, what they can say no to. So I think that would be like my my hope is that we're all kind of coming into it with the belief that people deserve to feel good about their birth and not what type of birth they have just to feel good about it. But that requires us educating them and advocating for them and supporting them in a bunch of different ways and not caring if they have an epidural or a c-section or have their baby on the toilet at home. Like whatever they want and whatever ways we can support them to minimize the trauma within it then that's my belief about birth and doulas in it. Well said yeah that's 100% what I would say. Yeah it's just what are your wishes? I think it's bringing that piece of we want you to feel heard and seen and we want to honor you and I think we all believe that it's whether you would use this word or not just a sacred time a special time an intimate time a vulnerable time and it can look a lot of different ways and it's our goal to support whatever you need in those moments to make it the best moment for you to feel safe and seen and heard. Yeah I think safe comes up a lot for me. We want you to feel safe. Yeah we had this one client come to us a year or two ago and the initial meeting she was like I want to be induced and I want an epidural and I want it to be on this date and I was like totally fine part of our job is to like peel that apart and figure out the why behind it so that on the back end when you're telling your birth story why you asked for these things. And she ended up doing a huge 180 after all the discussions and education because it turned out that that felt safe to her because she felt in control. And it turned out that her version of control that ended up serving her in the best way was actually spontaneous birth, unmedicated, all these things but that was just a journey she had to go on. But part of our job like I said is to just really be curious about the reasons behind somebody's choices not out of judgment but out of curiosity for their journey. So in the back end they can feel really good about the choices that they made. So it's never like I said any version of us caring about what type of birth somebody has or the reasoning behind it as long as they have a reason that they feel good about. Yeah. Yeah we're not ever asking clients to justify their choices to us. We're wanting to make sure they feel good about the choices themselves. Themselves. Yes. Totally yeah I think I just heard too many people say I just wish I didn't or if if only I hadn't XYZ I want clients to walk away being like I made that choice because I was informed and it was enthusiastic and even though things shifted after that it was a choice I made and I felt in control of it. So I think that it matters. Because the bottom line is I think I said this when we chatted the first time is like the person giving birth is the one living with that story. They're the one telling it over and over again. They're the one integrating it into their bodies. So we shouldn't care what type of birth they have we should care how they feel about it afterwards. Totally I think that is a beautiful wrap up to part one of this panel. Thank you all so much for joining me today and sharing about BBC. Thank you I mean isn't it the best I know I know it's like care kind of right