Doula
stories
A podcast where we use storytelling
to encourage, inform, and love on doulas.
About the Show
Ajira and Keelia deeply believe in the power of storytelling as a tool to build community, maintain our emotional health as doulas, and learn from one another. Together they listen to and share stories from doulas in all their beautifully nuanced and emotional detail."Why is it important that we tell the stories of doulas? Because doulas are caregives, and caregiving takes a toll. ... When we sign on to be caregivers, we are giving up a part of our identities for the sake of another person. ... We try to receive emotional burden for as long as we can, but the relief of that burden comes with our own sharing."
- Mary Mahoney & Lauren Mitchell, "The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People"
About Ajira
Co-host Ajira Darch (she/they) is a queer, fat, Black mama of two. She is passionate about parenting, connecting and building community.These passions and all she's learned through them inform and guide her work as a podcast host, ceremony facilitator, birth and branding photographer, full spectrum birthworker and business & branding consultant to birthworkers across the country.
About Keelia
Co-host and producer Keelia Alder (she/her) is a queer, mixed-race Asian-American mother. She mentors folks starting off on their journeys as healers, and she provides support to people going through the full range of reproductive experiences, including birth, postpartum, pregnancy loss, infertility, and sex ed.She comes from a long line of reproductive justice advocates, from her great-grandmother providing doula support in China, to her grandmother opening the first prenatal diagnosis lab in NYC, to her mom teaching childbirth ed in their living room when Keelia was a toddler. She incorporates their wisdom into her work as birthworker, healer, educator, mentor, and parent.
Connect
Have a story to share?
Tell us about it, and about yourself:
FIND US ON
or any other
podcast listening app