Birthing Doulas and Company

My passion for supporting families in the perinatal period was inherited from my maternal grandmother “Abuelita Maria”, whom I actually never had the honor of meeting. Abuelita Maria was a Partera, a midwife and healer, in the small town of Degollado in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. While she passed away when my mom was 16 years old, my mom recounts stories of my Abuelita and the births she had attended.

As a young child, I became intrigued by pregnancy and was hooked on the show “My Baby Story” on TLC. I thought that I’d grow to become a pediatrician as I “love babies.” However, because school has never been my favorite thing, I figured cosmetology may be an easier career.

In 2008, I graduated from high school and was working at a local pharmacy, while I took a “break” from school when one of my cousins called me to inform me that La Clinica was hiring for an MCH case manager. “MCH, what is that?” I asked, to which she  responded, “you’ll be working with pregnant people, you’ll love it!”

This is where my growth and awareness of the perinatal field really expanded. I worked with Certified Nurse-Midwives, and a  clinical team, in my role I welcomed over 500 patients into prenatal care and assessed barriers and provided education, and support during my tenure. I also collaborated closely with a variety of community-based organizations for wrap-around services. It was in this role that I learned about doulas, however, it didn’t seem feasible to work a full-time job and be on call for births. This changed when I was asked by a patient if I could be there for her birth. Ecstatic by the request, I began searching for doula trainings. As a believer of “signs and meant to be’s” there happened to be a training scheduled in Medford in two weeks. I jumped at the opportunity, trained as a doula, and three weeks later, I get the call that the patient/client was in labor. I put on my doula gear, headed to the hospital, doula’d, and it was at this moment that I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I went on to serve several more clients on a volunteer basis and began realizing that this would not be sustainable long term. I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, how could I make it happen? I began looking more into my community to identify what barriers doulas were facing, and what was needed to thrive.

Community: a community of doulas who shared similar standards.

Value: self-value in the work, energy, and education we hold and the value clients place on us to provide these services.

Respect: respect for and from other doulas, community organizations, and medical communities.

These pillars were the guiding force for Rogue Valley Doulas.

In 2016, Rogue Valley Doulas, LLC, (RVD) the first doula agency, was born with the mission to provide respectful and professional doula support to families, build and foster collaborative relationships with providers and community-based organizations, and lastly elevate the standards of doulas to be recognized as professionals.

After I became a Traditional Health Worker (THW) Doula in 2017, my focus shifted to learning more about this process and becoming contracted with Medicaid/Oregon Health Plan. During this time, I began guiding other doulas through obtaining their THW designation.

In 2019, Rogue Valley Doulas became the first doula hub to contract in the state of Oregon with a Coordinated Care Organization (CCO).  This was a very exciting moment, and scary to say the least. There was more learning of systems, contracts, billing, and more to meet the contractual requirements, but I kept learning, googling, and “picking other people’s brains.”