We recently connected with Kimberly Denitz-Zuleger and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kimberly, thanks for joining us today. How’s you first get into your field – what was your first job in this field?

Most people come to doula work because of their own birth outcomes. Or, maybe it’s because they want to serve women, and work in healthcare. For me, it’s a little different. I didn’t seek out doula work, it found me. Or rather, it was in me all along.

In 1987 my parents packed up our orange VW bus and hit the road north on the 101, leaving behind the South Bay of Los Angeles, California for a less busy way of life. I was 7 years old and my two little brothers were 6 and 1. I had been part of each of their births, my mother ushering me into the world of bodies, blood and babies very early on. When we landed in Ojai, California my parents had found a rural utopia. We were the epitome of free range kids. We would spend hours on end at the beach and then take the mountain pass home, the windows down, the smell of oranges and salt was sticky sweet. We’d ride our bikes to the book store and stop to pick berries off the vine, rushing in the door just as the sun set behind the Topa Topa mountains, illuminating it a fiery pink glow.

In 1988, my parents sat down my two brothers and I and told us they were having a baby. We were elated. At the time, Ojai had a small birth center in the middle of town. So one day we all headed over to check in with the doctor. I remember standing on the side of the bed, where my mother lay, green with early morning sickness. The doctor began to speak. There is another baby in there he said. My father leaned his head against the wall. And folks, he said, there is another. Congratulations, you’re having triplets. That explained why mom was so sick. Just days earlier we had been at a garage sale and I had to hold the plastic bag for her behind the car as she relieved herself into it. It’s okay mom, I said, it’s okay. In that moment I had no way of knowing that one day my future self would be bedside holding a bag, saying those same words for dozens and dozens of other women.

A couple months went by, my mother growing like the moon, when she asked me to come sit down in the living room one day. It was winter so the smell of our chimney was strong, soot and silence permeated the air. After a few minutes she told me the twins had died, and she had to have the other baby soon. The third baby was in a separate sac, but the twins were in another and had died together in utero. It was my first time learning about loss. I was 8. When my mom went into labor I waited outside the delivery door and heard the cries of both her and the baby. I prayed for two more voices, but I knew they’d never come. We never talked about it again. That not talking about it shaped a lot of my voice in today’s activism around birth and loss…but that’s another story for another time.

Less than a year later my mother came to me and handed me a book called Spiritual Midwifery. She was blooming again, pregnant with my last sibling to be. She said I could help her to deliver this baby, and suggested I read the book. I sat in our backyard on the picnic table, devouring the birth stories. When she went into labor in the winter of 1990 my dad woke me, telling me it was time. I was suddenly so nervous. Even now I remember finding my way to the birth center bathroom sitting on the toilet relieving myself of nerves. And then there I was beside her, holding her leg, feeding her ice chips, praying, telling her she could do it, and then all of sudden-seeing hair, seeing head, seeing red, and then a baby! It was a girl. We had been praying for this. And here she was, and now here I was. Caught somewhere between knowing too much, and not knowing enough. A little girl myself, with such a tremendous gift to behold. I was now the big sister of 4 on earth, and 2 in heaven, and I had not only witnessed but participated in my first birth. I was 10. What magic!

And so, that’s how I became a doula. Long before I knew the word, or what it even meant. Destiny knew though. I just had to heed the call.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Well, most importantly, I am a wife to a Midwest gentleman, and a mother to three kids, ages 23, 21, and 9. My youngest daughter is homeschooled, my middle daughter moved to Australia this past year, and my eldest is learning what it means to be a working man. Oh, and we have one in heaven. A loss from 2020. I am a writer, actor, runner, and collector of books, mostly memoirs, some on medicine, the natural world and lots of poetry. I rely too heavily on my best friend, a photographer and homeschooling mom in SLC, she’s the coolest, and keeps me going.

Doula work is not something I do, but rather it’s who I am. Pregnancy, birth and postpartum are realms like nothing else. Something I hold dear in my practice is the ability to walk with people where they are at on their spiritual path. This means that I have always welcomed humans into my practice no matter where they are at in their lives. I have chosen to work in the hospital for about 75% of my career. While doulas are often mistaken for just waving around crystals at a home birth, that’s actually just a small percentage of the work. I have always been called to the complexities of human behavior and the human experience on earth. This means that while I know a sovereign birth at home for a low risk person is the best option, that doesn’t mean that person knows that yet. So, I really built my business on meeting people as deep as they could go. I am essentially just a sherpa on the journey who understands that everything before the birth and everything after matters too. I have worked with families that are incarcerated, teens, single parents, planned cesareans, survivors of sexual violence that are choosing an epidural for safety, miscarriage at home, baby loss, sacred home birth, and even caught a baby in the car once. No matter the way we birth, I believe in the power of support for everyone. I live by this motto, and I put it into action daily.

Since 2015 I have been utilizing the placenta to create what I deem “medicine,” for birthing families. Most of my clients have chosen encapsulation, but I have worked with families with backgrounds from all over the world, and have been blessed to learn from them about their own cultural ways of regarding the placenta. From burial, to raw consumption, I’ve supported it all. I hope to write a book about it one day. I have been honored to learn from the placenta how important it is for women to honor its existence beyond just the physical capabilities. Consuming may not be for everyone, but everyone deserves to see it, touch it, and witness it. Placentas do not deserve or need to go to pathology expect in rare cases. But they can and do provide a deep spiritual and emotional offering to the body and mind. I believe they close the birth process and help connect us to the postpartum process in a unique and sacred way. This is my own research, what I’ve seen with my own eyes.

My future plans are to create a very affordable (and free in some cases) placenta ”mentorship/certification” course online, teaching the art of placenta encapsulation and other usage modalities, as well as how to care for a family in postpartum from my perspective. I want to give back to communities as much as I can, and one way is sharing my skills and love of this work from an affordable place. Doula work, birth work, none of it should be prohibitive. It should be accessible, and the gate should be wide open-so to speak.

My activism work is steeped in policy change, and community/grass roots efforts. I am the International Cesarean Awareness Network Chapter Director, so I implement, oversee, and support all chapters through ICAN. The NPO’s goal is to educate, empower, and support those seeking VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and to fight for policy changes in hospitals and communities where VBAC is banned. With our efforts, Santa Barbara County’s main hospital just over turned their VBAC ban after twenty years.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

A birth worker must, above all, release the idea that birth is dogmatic and that it has anything to do with you, or your skills, hence your ego. Release the idea about how people should birth, or who they should be, and instead allow them to unfold to you as they are, amidst their vulnerabilities. We cannot save people from themselves, or from a particular system. We aren’t fireman, we are sherpas. Secondary to that, doulas must have a very strong personal support system. This work is unavoidably grief ridden, and physically demanding. Success in doula work is going to mean something different to everyone, but I think in order to be at all successful, and this means to hold other women, you too will need to be held. A birth worker should assemble a team that can support her, from a massage therapist, to an actual therapist. Other doulas you can call on, friends who “get it,” These things are imperative. And for working on call when you have children, you must have partner support. Or family support, like a mom or aunt or friend. I have always maintained that when I go on call, it is my family who is also on call. I could not have done any of this without my partner or my mom (and my older kids who helped with my youngest!) Doula work is a family affair. And if you don’t have people who support you, and see you, and can hold you, then success will be much harder on you mentally, emotionally and physically.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mamathreebirds.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mamathreebirds/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kimberly.denitz.zuleger/

Image Credits
Fancy Free Photography (the family photo)