End-of-Year Doula Reflection: Money, Mess, and What’s Actually Possible for You
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Unknown speaker 00:04
Welcome to Doula Tips and Tips, the podcast where we cut through the noise and get real about what it takes to build a sustainable doula business. I'm Kayleigh Harris. I've been a doula informally for 14 years and full-time for seven.
Unknown speaker 00:20
Around here, we don't sugarcoat stuff. We talk autonomy, owning your worth, creating a business that works for you. No fluff, no burnout, just the honest truth on how to be your own best boss. Let's get into today's episode.
Unknown speaker 00:36
A wise woman once said, your business needs you to block out CEO time. And then that same wise woman had two babies come in the same week and use both days of her CEO time and forgot that she was the podcast host of Doula Tips and Tits.
Unknown speaker 00:53
So, hi there, guys. This is Kaylee, your trusty host, who just completely spaced on recording and uploading a video, or I mean, a podcast episode this week because a baby came on Tuesday and a baby came today.
Unknown speaker 01:13
So we're just in Baby Central over here. And we, the plan was we were going to have some podcast guests. Babies interrupted that. Like the babies are going rogue. I don't know how it is in other parts of the world right now, but DC babies are really something else right now.
Unknown speaker 01:34
So I want to talk today about the birth experience I had today because I think sometimes as doulas that we forget one of our biggest jobs. And I think it's all fun and games until we have a birth where literally every intervention that was unwanted needs to happen.
Unknown speaker 02:03
Right. Like I say this about OBs all the time and midwives as well, but OBs especially that any OB can do a decent job at an easy birth, right? Like you just like come in, catch a baby, like duped up D, it's all over, right?
Unknown speaker 02:24
But it takes a different kind of skill set to emotionally and educationally support a client through discouraging, frustrating, and unfortunate decision making, right? I think with doulas, we often get associated with crunchiness, right?
Unknown speaker 02:48
Like holistic, organic, whatever, all unmedicated, all home birth, all like intervention-free. And I'm not saying, I'm not totally against that, right? Like I'm, I'm a touch crunchy. I'm a little like put some honey on your cut.
Unknown speaker 03:04
You know, I definitely put breast milk on all sorts of things when I was lactating, right? Like I'd be like, you have pink eye? Come over here. Like squirt a little breast milk in your eyeball, right?
Unknown speaker 03:13
Like that. Yes, 100%. But also, I have the context of my own births being filled with interventions that I would have loved to not have only because I have the weirdest uterus and I have zero control over that, right?
Unknown speaker 03:33
Like my uterus formed when I was literally being formed in my mother's womb, if we will. So when I say I'm for a good old-fashioned home birth with nobody doing anything to anybody, yes, I am, right?
Unknown speaker 03:54
But also, that's not the main reason I do this work, right? So let me give you a little background of today's birth. And I'm not going to give you the full birth story because I was there for a very long time and it is not my birth story to tell.
Unknown speaker 04:09
So the short summary is this client delivering in a hospital, fairly low risk with a few few risky-ish things, right? First time delivering a baby. Lots of good educational support, emotional support, et cetera.
Unknown speaker 04:27
All four grandparents are there. A partner who adores her, et cetera, et cetera. A really great OB team, right? She has an incredibly frustrating situation with prodromal labor, kind of off and on, body sending weird signals, her getting a lot of unassociated pain.
Unknown speaker 04:47
So like crampiness in her knees, like just some very obscure, painful symptoms that were unnecessary. Now we have context for things like her low back and pelvic pain. She had a monster baby. Like she had a nine, over a nine-pound baby.
Unknown speaker 05:04
So that, and she's 5'5 and probably like 102 pounds soaking wet. So she's real small and had a enormous child sitting in her pelvis. So probably some of her pain before labor was that. So long story short, she went on Thursday night late, thinking she was in early labor.
Unknown speaker 05:23
She wasn't quite in early labor, but they kind of wanted to induce her anyway because she was having some high-risk things. And so she agreed to stay and be induced. So she started induction, started having lots of contractions, stayed one centimeter for like 15 hours.
Unknown speaker 05:37
It was very frustrated, did a Foley balloon or a Foley catheter, Cook's catheter, and got some Nubain and rested a little bit. $875 is what my first official doula package cost. And when I set that price, I gave the first three, I think, away for less than that.
Unknown speaker 06:10
I think it was $375 for the first three. Now, at this point in 2025, this was eight years ago, so not that long in terms of inflation, my package price has changed. And what it includes, of course, it is way more robust than it used to be at $875 and it has increased by over 400% in cost.
Unknown speaker 06:41
Now, of course, I have a lot more experience than I had then. I have more trainings than I had then. I have a full childbirth class in my package now. I see people for longer. I go to births for longer.
Unknown speaker 06:54
Like there's so many layers of what has changed, right? The point of what I've kind of been thinking about lately and what I want to share with you as I'm in this sort of mode of contemplating the good, bad, and ugly of 2025 and moving into 2026 is that I have increased to a point that I never would have imagined.
Unknown speaker 07:24
Right. And now I think even still this year, this fall, I increased my price again. And so I've had more people say no to me than in a long time, right? But I also am still having people say yes, right?
Unknown speaker 07:41
But each time it has felt like this is absolutely the most I could ever charge for this. And you know, what's funny to me is sometimes I remember like, I'm not the most expensive doula in the country.
Unknown speaker 07:54
I'm not even the most expensive doula on the East Coast, right? Like where I live is DC. And so prices are high to live here. Prices are high to hire doulas. Obviously, accessibility is a whole thing and we can get into that.
Unknown speaker 08:12
And I do births still for free or very inexpensive on a regular basis. However, I do want to emphasize that my own limiting belief about what I am worth and what I can charge for a package as a doula, what someone is willing to pay, is incorrect.
Unknown speaker 08:40
So I would venture to say if you currently have a package and you're like, okay, Kaylee, I charge $1,800, let's say, or $1,200 or $2,000. And I don't think I could charge more than that for XYZ reasons, right?
Unknown speaker 09:05
Like most, most doulas can give you a long list of reasons they don't think they can raise their rates. But I'm here to tell you that we're almost always wrong about that. And I, again, the purpose of this episode today is not to say every duelist should be charging unlimited amounts of money, right?
Unknown speaker 09:31
I don't actually believe in raising your rates artificially just for the sake of earning more. Like that, I'm not going to get into my politics and ethics of wealth management and equity and whatnot today in this episode.
Unknown speaker 09:53
But I am going to say like this scenario that I'm talking about is not about risk taking in the sense that like, let's like dare to see if anyone will pay you that. It's more that like we chronically undercharge and undervalue.
Unknown speaker 10:12
And part of the reason for that is our belief that people won't pay us the price that we need to charge or the price that we want to charge or the price that is sustainable for our lives or the price that accurately reflects the way that we live our lives being on call, right?
Unknown speaker 10:31
I've had some lawyer clients who are like, listen, if you worked on billable hours as an on-call person, you know how much money you'd make? And I'm like, oh, I know. Yes, I know. Yes, I'm aware of how much money I'd make.
Unknown speaker 10:47
Actually, I'm not. Like, I think I, I think I undercut even that. Like I underestimate how much an on-call lawyer that you can call at 2 a.m. would cost you because I have no frame of reference for that amount of money.
Unknown speaker 11:03
Right. And yet we are in a field that is doing this incredibly valuable, incredibly vulnerable, incredibly life-saving work on call, living with our phones next to us, waiting to be woken up at three in the morning.
Unknown speaker 11:23
And we charge like we literally work for a food chain, for a grocery store. And those are not bad things to do, right? It's okay to work for a food chain in a grocery store. Like that is, that is a career filled with dignity, right?
Unknown speaker 11:40
Like I do not believe that there are more dignified ways to work and less dignified ways to work. I think that ways you make money are ways you make money, right? But if you're going to work for yourself, it needs to be worthwhile to work for yourself, right?
Unknown speaker 11:59
And if you're going to literally give your time and your energy and your physical body and your emotional ability and your spiritual wellness, et cetera, to your clients to support them in this incredibly vulnerable space, you need to be adequately compensated for that.
Unknown speaker 12:20
And I don't want you to keep yourself from being there by having limiting beliefs about yourself and about what people will pay you, what your services are worth, what the market value is, et cetera, et cetera.
Unknown speaker 12:38
Okay. So part of what I'm focusing on for the end of 2025 is some self-reflection and also some sharing. Like I am a big proponent of transparency. And you know that about me. If you've been here for any amount of time hanging out with me on the Doula Tips and Tits podcast, you know that vulnerability and transparency are two big values of mine.
Unknown speaker 13:09
And so when I think about evaluating my business, I think about like looking at what needs to shift, what went really well, like celebrating the heck out of things that are going well. And also looking at like, okay, what do we need to change and improve and increase and maybe get rid of, right?
Unknown speaker 13:28
Like what purging needs to happen? Sorry. I just yawned and my pause button is not close enough for me to hit it. We're all doulas here. We can be tired as we record an episode. And so the end of the year for me is both a mix of what is working well in the business now and where do we move from here?
Unknown speaker 14:00
Like what does 2026 look like? And there's, there's kind of a bit of dreaming in that, but also there's a heavy dose of strategy, like very heavy dose of strategy. And I think a lot of focus, like intentional focus, right?
Unknown speaker 14:21
And part of what you've experienced in the last two weeks with me on the podcast, even if you've been hanging out with me, you know, my podcast episodes come out on Wednesdays. But for two weeks now, they have not come out on Wednesday because I've had babies come on either Tuesday or Wednesday or something like that.
Unknown speaker 14:40
And the result of me not batching these in advance and me not getting them scheduled in advance is that I have been waiting till the very last minute, trying to record a podcast, but then a baby comes.
Unknown speaker 14:53
And then I'm like, well, obviously I'm going to the birth. And so the podcast waits until Thursday or Friday or Monday. And so you are seeing in real time the consequence of me not doing the best practice that I know actually moves things forward in this business.
Unknown speaker 15:12
Right. And so part of what I am dedicated to and part of what I will continue to do for as long as I do this work is to share with you the ways that I also F things up, right? The ways I'm also like, yeah, you know how I told you to plan everything out?
Unknown speaker 15:31
I did that. And then I didn't schedule the posts, right? And so I haven't had a single post go up on social media in two weeks because my life has been nuts. I had a kid with the flu. I had two babies come.
Unknown speaker 15:42
My husband is now sick. Our dryer is broken. Like there's so many things happening in our life at the moment. And we're fine. Everything's fine. But I just didn't have time set aside for the CEO tasks that I needed to do.
Unknown speaker 16:00
And therefore, they didn't happen. And that's what I talk to you about all the time, right? Like I'm constantly saying, hey, it's all fun and games when you like, know you should be doing something, but you don't actually set time aside to do it.
Unknown speaker 16:18
Then you can't actually do it. You're not going to follow through on something that you don't plan out. So for the first episode in the like, maybe series, is it going to be a series? Maybe it's a series on wrapping up 2025.
Unknown speaker 16:40
I want to give you the homework of evaluating what you believe about what's possible in your business. And I want to encourage you to look at things in a couple different ways. And what I mean when I say that is like, first, maybe look at just the practical stuff.
Unknown speaker 17:05
Like, like what makes the most money in your business? And do you think you want to raise that rate or not? Right. Do you think you want to sell more of those packages or not? That's the kind of like practical side.
Unknown speaker 17:19
Right. Then the side that is more along the lines of like dreaming and growing and blossoming and having a little bit of manifesting and whatnot is like, okay, what can I even imagine this work could look like?
Unknown speaker 17:42
And in those two realms, you sort of have to give yourself space to keep them separated. My most recent birth included watching most of the Barbie movie because why not? Some good oxytocin there, right?
Unknown speaker 17:58
My client loves it. And I think about the moment when they're talking about the portal, the rip in the portal. And she's like, there's reality and there's Barbie land and never the twain shall cross or something like that.
Unknown speaker 18:15
Right. And when I think about your dreaming and your practical for right now, you need to keep those two separated because what I don't want you to do is start dreaming and then trying to figure it out.
Unknown speaker 18:31
That's not what we're doing right now, right? Right now, we're looking at what's actually happening and we're looking at what do I think is even remotely possible for me? Like, what is the broadest dream I can imagine for myself?
Unknown speaker 18:48
And not like, how the heck do I then get there? No, no, no. That's not a today problem. What we're looking at today is, do I even have the capacity to dream? And honestly, it might be surprising to you how small your dream capacity is.
Unknown speaker 19:05
Like you might be like, I can imagine owning a more reliable car. What? Try again, right? Like try bigger, try bolder, try more influence, right? When I was in college, I had a project that was make a, I don't remember what the brief was, like something along the lines of if you had, I don't think it was a limitless money situation.
Unknown speaker 19:39
I don't know. It was something along the lines of like, you have basically complete control and creative freedom, but your project is to create good, like to create some kind of ethical, social, moral, well, no, social, ethical, economic, I don't know, something like that change, right?
Unknown speaker 20:03
Mine was a like woman's shelter that is for women who have children or who are expecting children. Now, mind you, I was, I was probably 20 when I had this idea and I was not at all interested in birth work.
Unknown speaker 20:23
I was actually really freaked out. I, in my teen years, I did a science class where we had to like go to a lab and watch someone dissect an organ and I almost passed out. Like I was like, oh yeah, no, I can't do body stuff.
Unknown speaker 20:35
Like I was like, I don't know, not bloody, not puky, not any of that stuff. And here I am watching people push babies out of their vaginas. So, you know, things change. But at 20, I was sort of like, my dream is to have this safe place.
Unknown speaker 20:55
And I remember being like, it would be beautiful. Like it would, it's not going to be like just like bare bones. It's going to be like awesome. Like it's going to be lovely. It's going to be lavish. It's going to be like so wonderful for them.
Unknown speaker 21:08
And it's going to be free. And it's going to be for people who either already have kids and need help with them and need shelter, need, need, you know, safety, et cetera. Or for people who are pregnant with their abuser's baby and who need shelter and safety and nurturing and all of that.
Unknown speaker 21:29
Right. And I mean, the vision was beautiful. And I remember my mentor who was the teacher of that class, she was one of my academic mentors in college. She was like, Hayley, this is awesome. And I think about that sometimes.
Unknown speaker 21:44
And there, and I go back to like, that could really be my life. Like, I could really do that one day. Like, what a, what an awesome thing. Right. Like, wouldn't that be amazing? Like, we in DC have these lush, like couple, there's only like two or three of them, but they're like lush, like, postpartum retreat spaces.
Unknown speaker 22:01
You can like move in there with the baby for a while and whatever. And it's like, I don't even know, probably thousands of dollars and whatever. Like it's, I have not been there. I do not know much about it, but I'm sure it is a very luxurious situation.
Unknown speaker 22:17
And of course, something that's only really accessible to people who have a lot of finances. And so my dream is something similar to that, but for people who have nothing. And part of what I love as a person who's experienced poverty is unnecessary lavishness.
Unknown speaker 22:36
That makes me so happy to my core. Like pampering someone, like ordering them their favorite meal instead of just food because they're hungry lights me up. Like it makes me so happy. And I think about like the ways that it, the way that it impacts the receiver when you receive something that is so unnecessarily beautiful and joyous and lavish, luxurious, right?
Unknown speaker 23:12
Like the way that you cherish that, because you needed plates, you know, you needed mugs, but you didn't need them to be the ones that you loved the most. You needed them to just work, right? You needed them.
Unknown speaker 23:25
They could have been the 50 cent ones from the Dollar Tree, but instead someone buys you your favorite set of plates and mugs. This is a real life story from my life. A beautiful older woman buys you the plates that you really want and the mugs that you really want.
Unknown speaker 23:41
And still to this day, every time you eat on those plates, you think of her and think of how she didn't need to be that lavish with you. Like she didn't have to, she didn't have to love you like that, you know?
Unknown speaker 23:52
And so when I think about that dream, like obviously that does come with a good amount of funding, right? A good amount of finances. Like, how do you have a lavish space that people don't pay for? You have to fund it, right?
Unknown speaker 24:06
You have to have donors. You have to have rich folks who are able to give to that. And so there's obviously parts of that dream that need to come with access to funds and maybe my personal funds, maybe someone else's funds, right?
Unknown speaker 24:24
But that's not the point of the dream right now. Like right now, the point of the dream is that the dream can be a dream. It's okay for that to happen and to have it be big and unknown, right? Like I can't give you a five step or 10 step or even 25 step plan to get me from here to that lavish postpartum space or that lavish, you know, family space.
Unknown speaker 24:51
I don't know what that looks like right now. And I don't know that I need to know what that looks like right now. You know, what I need to do right now is believe that it's possible. Right. That's, that is the piece that I'm talking about today is like, do you even think that there's a possibility of that?
Unknown speaker 25:13
Because if not, you are limiting yourself in probably every part of your life, but especially in your business, especially in your business. Like you are for sure undervaluing what you do as a person and who you are as a human, but also the ways that you show up as a doula, right?
Unknown speaker 25:34
And knowing that lavish, wonderful, beautiful, expansive businesses are possible for us as doulas is the starting place. Right. That's, that's like the bare minimum. Like just dream of it and believe that dream is a reality.
Unknown speaker 25:59
That's really all. And I'm not, I'm not so woo-woo that I'm like, then it happens, right? Like I have lived in poverty for too much of my life to think that that is the case. Like I just, my family, and I don't know how much of that story I've shared with you all, but when our children were really little, I'm not going to get into all the details now, but like when our children were little, we were finishing grad school.
Unknown speaker 26:27
We got married, very poor, and just kind of like figuring stuff out with like love and hopes and prayers. Right. But also then started having babies and honestly got pregnant easier than we expected, kind of unexpectedly, kind of not entirely planned.
Unknown speaker 26:50
And so, but also we're like, hey, we do want kids, you know, like we love our children. They're amazing. And also like my PCOS makes me just get pregnant when I think about it. Right. So so the result of that for us was having babies, very close together with very little money and living in some really dire straits in terms of financial need, but being lavishly provided for.
Unknown speaker 27:17
And I would say miraculously in some cases, right? But like being cared for in a way that is really beautiful and really lovely and has been life-changing forever for us in terms of like how it's shaped us as people.
Unknown speaker 27:34
Right. And so like from that experience, I can tell you it was, it was not a lack of my imagination or my desire that kept us in that place, right? It wasn't for like insufficient amounts of manifestation.
Unknown speaker 27:52
And so I do reject that idea that like dream about it and it'll just happen. I think dreaming about it has to happen for you to even get curious about what it will take to get there. Because the dream is the starting place for that, right?
Unknown speaker 28:09
The dream is the very, very bottom start of where you then say, hmm, let me get curious about this. Like let me get curious about what my potential is. Like let me get curious about how I show up in that thing, right?
Unknown speaker 28:27
Okay, I feel like we got a little off track, but not entirely. I don't think it was worthless. Part of these last couple episodes of 2025, I want to be a bit reflective and a bit inspirational and a bit raw because I think it's helpful for you to also remember that you're not forging this path by yourself and you're not forging a path that no one else has forged, right?
Unknown speaker 28:57
Like it's so much lonelier to think you're the firstborn one walking this journey, but you're not. And I think that actually comes with a good amount of hope. And so that's part of where I hope this sort of mini series, I suppose, lands with you is like there is an understanding, there's a deep like camaraderie in the struggles that are happening in your business because I have actually walked through those struggles.
Unknown speaker 29:29
And also I want to be like an example and an inspiration and a co-worker, right? Like I want to be in this space where we can be walking together in this path. And also I can show you some things that I've done, you know, and show you some possibilities that you maybe haven't thought of.
Unknown speaker 29:51
Okay, so that's all for today. I do plan to have one episode every single week on Wednesdays from here on out. And I am going to work hard to make that happen and put my money where my mouth is. Is that how you say it?
Unknown speaker 30:09
About blocking out my CEO time and getting that stuff done. Okay, I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Doula Tips and Tits Podcast. If you learned something today or had an aha moment, we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at Haradoula so we can celebrate alongside you.
Unknown speaker 30:33
If you found this podcast helpful, we would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app. That helps other doulas find us as we do this work together.
Unknown speaker 30:45
This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment. It is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around your health and your business.
Unknown speaker 30:57
We'll see you again soon.
ASK A QUESTION!!! My plan is to start Friday Q&A (we need a new name, I know!) but first I need your questions! Submit them using the form below:
https://www.harroddoulaservices.com/ask-me-a-question
This week’s episode is a mix of honesty, birth-room reality, and the kind of end-of-year reflection doulas rarely give themselves time for. After two babies arrived on my supposed CEO days (because of course they did), I found myself thinking about the emotional skill it takes to support clients through births that don’t go according to plan—and how that mirrors the emotional skill it takes to evaluate our own businesses honestly. I’m talking about rates, worth, sustainability, and the surprising places where we limit our own growth, even when we swear we’re dreaming big.
Quote from the show:
“We chronically undercharge and undervalue. And part of the reason for that is our belief that people won't pay us the price that we need to charge or the price that we want to charge or the price that is sustainable for our lives…. If you're going to literally give your time and your energy and your physical body and your emotional ability and your spiritual wellness to your clients to support them in this incredibly vulnerable space, you need to be adequately compensated for that.”
CONNECT with Kaely on TikTok or Instagram
https://www.tiktok.com/@doulacoach
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If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me @harroddoula
Doula Tips and Tits is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services
It is sponsored by The Doula Biz Blueprint Self-Paced Class for Doulas Launching Successful and Sustainable Businesses!
Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay
