“I am one of seven kids. My older brother was born in a car on the way to the hospital and my younger brother was born in the shower as a planned birth. Growing up we were always around babies and everyone in my family loves babies. My mom said she thought I should become a midwife. I was doing some part time work as a photographer in high school and started attending births and photographing them. Someone said, maybe you should become a doula because it is a trade. You can dip your toes in without going to nursing school for eight to ten years.
I graduated high school when I was sixteen and moved to Vermont to be close to my grandparents. It did not go as planned, and I soon ended up moving back to South Carolina. I think I was pushing too hard to branch away from where my family was, and the timing just wasn’t right.
While in Vermont, I had listed myself on a doula listserv and completely forgot about it, but randomly got an email from someone in Hanover asking for postpartum support. I came up here in May 2019. Everyone at home said that I would not return to South Carolina again. But I said, “No, no, no. I’m just going for a few weeks”. I got to Hanover and on the first day of work, I called my parents and told them I wasn’t coming back–this is it. I did have to go home to get my things. While I was there, my dad and I built a house out of a vintage camper. I got my dog, towed the camper up here, and have been here ever since.
I have been a doula for a few years now, and I just registered as a nonprofit. I renovated a mobile reproductive health clinic, and I am planning to do pop-up reproductive health clinics across the state of Vermont with a local midwife.
I was sitting in traffic one day with my mom on the speaker and the light was green, but the car in front of me wasn’t driving. I was trying to get home after a long day of work and my mom heard me scream, “The light isn’t green forever!” She thought that was a really good motto to live by. It’s not that the opportunity is gone completely, but if the light is green right now in front of you, then go for it.”
– Jess Kimball, Fairlee, VT
