Tell me about your vision.
My vision is to have a really large workforce of DULAs
who are Medicaid providers in the state of Nevada.
You said very, really large workforce of DULAs
in the state of Nevada.
Correct.
Can you tell me more about that?
Yeah, DULAs are a non-medical provider
that work with women who are pregnant
through the birth process, labor and delivery, and postpartum.
They're in higher demand now, and almost two years ago,
it was announced that Medicaid would cover.
We did legislation here in the state of Nevada
to raise the working wage to a decent amount of money.
I charge $1,500 normally for a self-pay client,
and in the beginning, Nevada Medicaid was paying $350.
So it was not a working wage, but we've raised that up
to the $1,300 to $1,500 range, which
was an amazing accomplishment.
And we now need to build a bigger workforce of DULAs
who want to work with the previously unserved
populations.
DULAs predominantly are known for home births and self-pay,
which is an upper middle class demographic.
With Medicaid's coverage, that opens up
50% of the pregnant population, which is amazing,
and also a population of women who most likely it
would have been much more challenging for them to be
able to afford to hire a DULA.
And it's 100% covered by their Medicaid plan.
And in order to serve the amount of pregnant women who actively
have Medicaid during pregnancy, we
would need a bigger DULA workforce.
It changed my business from almost 100% home birth
self-pay to about 80% our Medicaid clients.
Now, and in the hospital predominantly.
So it's really changed what DULAs can do,
and where DULAs work, and who they work with.
Thank you for sharing that.
Where would you say that this vision of having a business
with service in DULA industry came from?
Definitely my first daughter's birth over 32 years ago.
I had a hospital delivery.
I was military dependent at the time.
And I had an overwhelmingly positive experience.
It was very challenging, but it was overwhelmingly positive.
And some of that was just luck.
It was just luck.
I had no support.
My husband at the time was not able to be
with me for the delivery.
I had my mom and my 18-year-old sister there.
And I just, by sheer luck, things went well.
It was not knowledge of my own or the proper support.
That led me to realize several things.
One, you can have a very positive experience,
even in the hospital, which was not my first choice.
I had wanted to do a birth center birth or a home birth.
And so I was transferred to the hospital
due to some risks in my pregnancy.
And also, it's possible to have a super successful, happy,
positive birth in a setting that you didn't necessarily
choose or want, and support helps a lot.
And so I wanted other women to not
feel so alone in whatever their situation or choices were.
And that's how I got into birth work 32 years ago.
32 years ago.
Yeah.
It's been a minute.
So what happened after that when you got into this space?
What did you do?
I spent 12 years as a birth assistant.
I worked predominantly with a midwifery agency.
I was a lactation consultant.
I ran Lillege League meetings.
So I was supporting women a lot postpartum
and with the breastfeeding relationship, and also
prenatally in the clinic setting with midwives and at home
births.
And I loved it.
After 12 years, unfortunately, I had
to take a step back from that, from birth work, which
was one of the most challenging periods of time,
couple years in my adult life.
I was divorced.
I had moved to a new location.
And I needed a job that was steady income and more steady
hours, which is another reason that my vision is so important.
Now I'm older.
My kids are mostly adults.
But doulas coming into the workforce
have younger children.
And getting that steady income so that they can actually
be a doula as a job that contributes to the family's
finances, I wouldn't have had to give it up
if things had been like they are now back when I stopped.
And then a few years ago, I was really
blessed to be able to go back to birth work, something
I didn't think I would ever be able to do.
I feel very grateful we made changes in our family dynamic.
I'm remarried now.
And to make that happen, and I just
think if the process could be more streamlined,
a little faster, a little easier, a little more
supported for the doulas, then it's
something that they could do even
with a small young family.
Thank you for sharing that.
So how did you get started on, I'm
guessing, your business with the doula specifically?
I think I'm tenacious and resourceful.
And that tenacity and ability to reach out with the community,
when I was involved in birth work that first 12 years,
I was very well connected with the midwifery atmosphere.
I lived in Alaska at the time.
And so it was kind of an extension of what
I was already doing.
I knew them well and kind of just
segued right into birth work.
When I restarted this time in a new state,
I'm in the state of Nevada, and having things changed quite
a bit from when I had done it before,
a lot of my corporate work for about 10 years
when I went back to work in the corporate world
and gave up birth work, a lot of those skills
were super helpful for me moving forward.
I think first, I have an entrepreneurial spirit.
I want to do my own thing.
And that's really helpful because I
don't treat this like a hobby.
I treat it like a business.
And then I took any of the skills
I had built as a stay-at-home mom, in my past work
with doula work, and also in what I wanted now
and how my life had changed.
I did a lot of community outreach.
I knew the areas that I wanted to work with.
I feel like determining what's your niche,
creating a USP, really working on community outreach
and really diving into where are these people, who are they,
where are they, and how can you connect with them.
And so I just literally, to get started,
I jumped in deep end all the way with tenacity
and really just using all the skills
that I had from my life up to that point.
Thank you for sharing that.
And how long have you been in the space now?
Three years this time around, over 15 years in total.
That's awesome.
That's amazing.
That goes to my next question for you, Jennifer.
What is your goal for being on the show?
Encouragement, I think.
There doesn't have to be anything super rock star
special about who you are and what your skills are.
There are people out there that want to connect with you.
Your story is valid and important.
Who you are, what you have to offer, all of those things
are important.
If I could just encourage, especially
women with younger families, to do what they want to do,
to live their life in passion.
And to figure out a way that they can make that work,
even with a young family.
That was something that was challenging for me
to balance in the first round of birth work
when I did it for 12 years.
I think I had great support in my family
and outside of myself, in my community at the time.
And then now I knew that that was something
that I really needed to build and develop.
And I just want to encourage women out there
who are really excited about starting a business similar
to this, that there are ways that they can do it
and be supported.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.