We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Macy Morrow. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Macy below.
Macy, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
As far back as I can remember, I grew up with a fascination around birth. I remember watching A Birth Story marathons on TLC, and creating core memories around the labor of our cocker spaniel, Wiggles. Watching births sparked a primal, familiar call to hold someone, err some animal, through that liminal space. There is a vulnerable tightrope a birthing individual navigates in pregnancy and labor. They are not only in physical transition, but emotional. They navigate between what was, what is, and what will be. The fragility of human life in those moments, and the endurance of the birther captivate me.
I took many different career roads to get here. I was a nanny, a waitress, a personal assistant, a cosmetologist, and an admin. Only now am I able to connect the thread of hospitality in each of those fields. For me, being a doula is rooted in hospitality, in seeing needs and meeting them before they’re asked. When I became pregnant with my second child, my husband and I hired a doula to come alongside me. Having her with us made me switch from the certified nurse midwifery track I was on, and a year after he was born I was a certified full-spectrum doula.
My mission will always be to help vulnerable populations. I always thought it was strange that the elderly, children, and individuals with serious physical or mental disabilities are granted social workers, yet one of the most vulnerable populations, pregnant individuals, are left on their own. Birthing individuals are often asked very complicated questions in the midst of contractions, pain, and under duress, making it extremely easy to impart trauma. Birth doulas have been proven to decrease a person’s feelings of dissatisfaction in their labor. They’re also shown to decrease caesareans, and help mitigate the need for pain medications. Being a doula means connecting my clients to local resources, it means advocating on behalf of my clients, and it means assisting them through multiple transitions. This work is making a difference. I may continue down the road towards midwifery someday, but for now, I love this role of a suedo-social worker.
Macy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Of course! I’m Macy Morrow, owner of MotherLift. MotherLift is two-fold: 1) it is the name of my doula dealings and 2) it is an online platform for parents helped run by my two sisters: a therapist and a designer.
I’ve been married to a straight-laced attorney (my opposite) for 11 years, and together we have three rambunctious children. At any given moment you’ll likely find me reading a book and sipping a cup of tea. I enjoy riding horses, eating delicious food, hiking, and making things with my hands.
My doula practice is unique in the fact that I only take on one client per month. I do this for a few reasons. First, it allows me to be realistic about running a business with three small children. Second, it allows me to throw all my attention and energy to my client and their highly individualistic needs.
Research says that postpartum depression can have an onset of up to two years postpartum. Throw in a newborn and it seems impossible to reach out and get the help that’s needed. During the postpartum months of my clients, I stay available for questions, troubleshooting, and to connect them with local resources such as lactation consultants, chiropractors, acupuncturists, mental health professionals, functional medicine doctors, and herbologists.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
MotherLift launched during the pandemic, and while it isn’t bustling with followers, we’ve got really engaged followers. Right now, we’re on a little hiatus, which generally is a kiss of death in social media, but anytime we go back, our followers are there again, affirming that what we’re doing is so needed.
Something unique about our online platform is that it’s run by me (Macy) and my two sisters, Meg Schlabs, a designer, and Morgan Myers, a therapist in Dallas. I think people like the fact that we’re sisters, and the fact that we each have our own lane. They love the realness of the account. We start hashtags like #normalizemess and we aim to be the anti-Instagram-moms we want to see more of. We talk about hard things, like anger in parenting, and breaking up with friends that don’t work in your life anymore.
We’re so grateful for the people that have stuck around. Although I’m no expert, if you’re just starting out, the best thing you can do is be clear in your “brand” and authentic to your followers. People on social media can see the falsities from a mile away. People want digestible content, and they’re craving authenticity. If you can do that, then your following will naturally grow, and the right people will find you.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
We hired a consultant on growing our brand, and she walked us through the process of email marketing. We really hated it, but damn if it didn’t work. When individuals are not in the pre-designed email loop, we try to send out emails with just our voices. For a while we did a Friday roundup where we would email our favorite things from around the internet. This helped our brand in connecting our clients with the people behind the brand. In my opinion, it’s much easier to build brand loyalty when clients buy into you. Once they do that, the brand loyalty comes naturally.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.motherlift.com
- Instagram: @motherlift
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/motherlift
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/macy-morrow-574b481a0/
Image Credits
Carley E. Photography