The Next Step...

So what's the next step for Your Best Birth?

The Next Step:
Dorothy and Jessica will be attending the DONA Birth Doula Trainer Workshop being held in Boston in July 2011! This is the next step in our journey to becoming Birth Doula Trainers!

Here's a timeline of some events in YBB History leading up to this:
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November 2007 - Dorothy and Jessica decide to become business partners. We brainstorm names and come up with Your Best Birth. We purchase a website and have a logo designed and register our business with the state of NJ.

December 2007 - We both become certified as Lamaze educators! We also start this on-again/off-again blog.

January 2008 - It's official - Your Best Birth is open for business! As we have for the past several years, we each take 1-2 doula clients per month.

January - March 2008 - We develop our curriculum for our classes and start advertising.

March 2008 - Our open house at Fair Haven Yoga, where we will be holding classes.

April 2008 - Our first class series! We have two wonderful couples as well as two student doulas.

October 2008 - We decide to offer classes in a second location closer to Middlesex county. Dr Tom of McGuire Chiropractic offers the use of his office space for teaching classes.

February 2009 - Our first class series in Matawan with three great couples!

August 2009 - We attend the DONA conference in Atlanta, GA and start seriously discussing working towards becoming doula trainers. When the location for the 2011 conference is announced to be Boston, we decide that our goal is to have all steps completed for the 2011 Doula Trainer Workshop, offered immediately after the DONA conference. There are a lot of steps involved to get approved to take the Doula Trainer Workshop, one of which is that we need to have at least 200 hours of teaching with at least 4 expectant moms in each class, so we start keeping track of which classes will actually qualify.

January 2010 - We attend TENS training with Penny Bussell-Stansfield, who is also a doula trainer with DONA. While there, we discuss the logistics of becoming doula trainers with Penny, who encourages us to go for it!

September 2010 - Fair Haven Yoga moves to a beautiful new location. We are happy to have this bright airy space to teach

Spring 2011 - We assemble and submit our application for permission to attend the Birth Doula Trainer Workshop.
June 8, 2011 - Dorothy and Jessica both receive this email:

Ladies,
I'd like to welcome you to take the birth doula training workshop in conjunction with the DONA International conference next month. I am notifying the office that you have been approved to attend.
Congratulations and I'll see you in July!

June 8, 2011 (approximately 6 hours after receiving the above email) - We mail in our registration forms to attend the Doula Trainer Workshop, to be held in Boston in July 2011.
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We are both excited about this next step for us and for Your Best Birth.  We look forward to holding DONA birth doula workshops in the Central NJ area.

What does this change mean? For our clients - not much will change. We will continue to take doula clients and  teach childbirth classes, and our commitment to our clients will stay the same.  One benefit to our doula clients is that by teaching the doulas trainings, that information will be fresh in our heads when we work with our own clients.

For those who have taken our childbirth classes, you know that we make our classes fun and relevant, with lots of laughing and good practical information. We are looking to bring that same element to our doula training classes.

We will both be blogging throughout our journey to becoming doula trainers. At this point, we expect to be offering our first DONA-Approved Birth Doula Workshop in the Central NJ area sometime in Spring 2012.

We encourage you to follow us throughout our journey, and if you have ever thought about becoming a birth doula, consider joining us next spring!

Dorothy