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My Story
My Story
My name is Erin Phillips and I am a DONA trained birth doula, working on my certification. I live in the Seminole/Largo
area of Pinellas County with my husband Jason, our daughter Jacqueline and our son Brendan. My road to becoming a doula has
had quite a few stop and starts. I first found out about doulas and what they do back in 2002, when I was in a corporate
America job and feeling unfulfilled. Before that, for my entire life people have been telling me I should be a nurse or teacher-
I guess you could say I’m simply wired to care for others. I thought about nursing, but attending school to end
up with the possibility of being stuck in triage or an ER for my career really didn’t appeal to me. I entered college
with intention of declaring education as my major, but got lazy with classes and decided to quit.
So after only a year under my belt, I started what would a long string of office and corporate jobs. I decided that
I wanted to work for myself, and through ivillage.com came across the Doula occupation. It sounded like it fit me- here I
was, someone who had a calling to take care of people, and a Doula could do that. However, to start my certification would
take time, and my young life was getting in the way.
Fast forward to July 2005. I had a true surprise when I gave birth to our daughter. It’s a long, quite interesting
story, of which you can read about in My Birth Experiences. Her birth rekindled my interest in being a doula, because I really
feel if I had one present, the overall experience would have been even more enriched. I really came from my own birth story
believing in a woman’s body doing what it was designed to do.
Very quickly thereafter we were pregnant again. I had a really healthy pregnancy, and had every intention of ‘going
natural‘, however circumstances didn’t allow, and I had an induction with an epidural. I can truly say
I’ve had both sides of the fence as far as birth experiences and absolutely view medicated and natural childbirths
with equality.
We relocated from our hometown to Pinellas county with my husband’s job. I immediately started looking for
ways to work from home, and revisited again the idea of being a doula. The Tampa area has a very positive and active birth
community, and neither my husband or I intend on relocating ever again, so I ‘set up shop’ and look forward
to serving mamas-to-be and their families!
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