Thinking about goals

Before Baby Girl came along I'd been starting to think about my professional development, and now that she's here and she's an amazingly calm and chill baby and we're getting into a pretty good routine, I've been starting to think about that again.

It's funny, until last year I've always said that I wasn't particularly interested in being a birth worker of any kind. But for some reason I started thinking about it while I was pregnant with her, and now thinking about being with birthing women and newborn babies just seems like the natural thing for me to do. So one of my major goals is to be a doula. I'd like to work with women and their partners during the pregnancy, be there to support them at the birth, and then (this is actually the part I'm most excited about) help out in the postpartum period, with whatever she needs help with as she gets used to life with the new baby for the first 8 weeks or so.

Before that, my number one goal is to register with the NAHA as a trained aromatherapist. 

There are other things I hear about and look into and have a great deal of interest in. But for now those are my two major goals. Some of my other interests include massage, reflexology, herbal studies, nutrition, yoga, and pretty much anything to do with newborns and mothers - infant care, breastfeeding, baby wearing, safe sleep, and so on. Some of those, I'm sure, will be worked into my career and some won't. My plan is to be self employed so that I can work directly with families and have a great deal of flexibility in my schedule.

For now my main plan is to be present with our young kids, particularly BooBoo and Baby Girl, who are still home with me while Bug is in school during the day. But I'm thinking that within this year I'd like to get enrolled in an aromatherapy program, and I've even started scoping out different programs at various schools. It's exciting to think about being in school again, eight years after graduating!