Who I am, What This Is.

I am so glad to begin this blog as a guide to doulas who want their questions answered, who want tips, tricks, event information, and information about their profession. The field of labor support is getting ever more popular and I find that in the years I have been a doula, it's becoming more and more frequent that when people ask me what I do and I say

"I am a doula"or "I do labor support"

they nod and smile. I used to get crazy looks of uncertainty when the word doula parted from my lips. Or people thought I did labor/union organizing- no, no. This is definitely not union organizing!

My name is Gina Forbes and I am a co-founder of Creative Birth Doulas, a Boston-based doula collective offering a range of birth services to women and their families in the childbearing year. I was trained as a doula with ALACE in 2004 (now certified) and began my independent practice immediately. I was instantly enthralled with the work I was doing. It was an honor and privilege to step into the lives of each of my clients and walk with them on the intimate and special journey of welcoming new life into their family. I attended births all over Boston- at the major hospitals, the Cambridge Birth Center, and homebirths all over the place. I loved guiding women in their birth choices and supporting families. I loved, of course, seeing and meeting each new baby, but also witnessing the birth of new mothers and fathers as they transformed from men and women into parents. I didn't even mond the crazy hours and sleep-deprivation because I love birth!

Soon after being trained, I began meeting regularly with Sarafina Kennedy and Corina Pinkerton, two other ALACE doulas, for support and inspiration. We quickly identified our amazing chemistry together and named ourselves the Creative Birth Doulas (CBD). It felt right to call ourselves "creative" because we placed a great value in honoring differences in choice and perspective and felt particularly creative with the ways in which we could support a diversity of women to birth their babies. We also birthed myriad ideas in each others presences, creating new energy for us each to take to our work and our clients.

We enjoyed our blissed out years of work together. My doula work led me also to midwifery training and supported me through an apprenticeship and studying to become a CPM. I also worked at ALACE for several years as their Workshop Coordinator and more recently as Executive Director. But then something happened- I got creative in other ways. Yup, it was my turn to have a baby. To grossly summarize, I became pregnant in Feb 2008, went to Senegal with the African Birth Collective during my first trimester to attend births, came back and went to some more births in the Boston area until I was 5 month pregnant and then I stopped.

I stopped doing births for several reasons. One, I was tired. Two, I moved to Maine to be with my partner. Three, I don't know, but I felt a new era of birth work was before me. I just didn't want to be a new mom and be on-call. I started to feel something else was in my future and, sure enough, on November 6, 2008, I became a full-time mom to Chester Thomas and he has been my life and work since. Motherhood has wrapped her arms around me and taken me in. I am 100% a mothr all the time and, for me, that means birth work is on a temporary hiatus.

But, folks who know me know that I can't sit still for long. So, here I am.

The point of this blog is to use my years of experience as a doula and birth professional to be a resource and guide to other doulas. One could say I am a doula to the doulas- guiding, educating, and empowering you to get out there and offer the best labor support you can. I hope to provide tips, tricks, information, tools...all to make your job as a doula as easy as can be. I want to see how my guide can grow to also offer basic shopping for your doula tools and who knows what else. But, for now, this is my start.

Welcome to A Creative Birth Guide to Doula-ing.