Tag: birth

What’s IT Matter to Me?

Today on the Edge of Innovation, we are talking with Enza Lilley, a doula from “A Mommy’s Friend Doula Service” about her experiences as a Doula and small business owner on the North Shore of Boston.

 

Show Notes

Enza Lilley’s Website: www.amommysfriend.com

Find Enza Lilley on Facebook

Enza Lilley in the Boston Voyage Online Magazine

Link to SaviorLabs’ Free Assessment

Sections

A Mommy’s Friend” – Searching for a Doula
What’s in a Name
Doula-ing From a Technology Point of View
WannaCry, Petya and Ransomeware – Why Protecting your Website is Important
Why Small Businesses Need to Back Up Data Too
Be Proactive With Data Backups

 

What’s IT Matter to Me?

 

Paul: Well hi! I’m here today with Enza Lilley.

Enza: Hello!

Paul: She’s headquartered, or really works geographically out of the North Shore of Massachusetts into Boston and she helps moms bring new people into the world.

You are obviously geographically located, you know, so you basically go a certain geography. How far do you go from here?

Enza: Usually within 30 miles.

Paul: So we’re on the North Shore of Boston. So will you go into Boston?

Enza: I will go into Boston. I do charge a little bit more to go into Boston, but I do. And sometimes you can find me in New Hampshire. I have done Catholic Medical Center there and Exeter. Not very often.

Paul: Right. So do you think about it from a point of view of the hospital or the birthing center? Is that sort of the anchor points for you?

Enza: Yes, yes.

Paul: So if somebody called you from Lexington, are you immediately thinking, “Well, what hospital is in Lexington?” Is that how you think about it?

Enza: That’s how I think about it.

Paul: Interesting. Do you do marketing?

Enza: Very little. My website speaks volumes. I occasionally will put my card up in coffee shops. I have done the baby bash, the annual Danvers Baby Bash, which I’ll do again this year. But that’s really all I do in marketing.

Paul: Interesting. That’s cool. Are you fairly busy? I mean, it sounds like you’re booked.

Enza: Oh, I’m very booked.

Paul: So I guess what we’re saying is if you’re going to have a baby or thinking about having a baby, call Enza first.

Enza: Don’t wait. Don’t wait till you’re 36 weeks pregnant to call for either me or any doula. I’m already pretty much booked until the end of September.

Paul: Wow. So what would happen if somebody came to you and said, “I really want to hire you.” Obviously, they’re doing it a little late. You refer them to somebody maybe?

Enza: If I’m really crazy, I’ll take them on. But most of the time, yes, I have a couple of other doulas that I will refer them out to.

Paul: Okay. So now are there professional organizations for doulas?

Enza: There are.

Paul: And are you a member of those?

Enza: I am currently not a member.

Finding “A Mommy’s Friend” – Searching for a Doula

Paul: But then if you want to search for a doula, what do you do? We’ve talked about your website, and what’s the URL for it?

Enza: It’s www.AMommysFriend.com.

Paul: Okay. And it’s m-o-m-m—

Enza: —y-s… Yes.

What’s in a Name?

Paul: Okay. A mommy’s friend. Okay. Not m-o-m-m-i-e-s apostrophe, hyphen, dash. So AMommysFriend.com. What’s with the name, just in that it encompasses that, or where’d that come from?

Enza: So, years ago, I was trying to come up with a name for my business and I was asking around, and trying to come up with different things. And a client of mine said, “I really don’t care what you call yourself, but to me, you’ll always be a mommy’s friend.” And I thought, I like that because I do become their friend. I think it describes me. I’m loyal. I am dependable, committed. I’m a friend.

Paul: Yeah. That’s cool. So, what if you’re looking for a doula, alright, you can go to AMommysFriend. What happens when you search for a doula. I mean, is it a commercial business? Or is it individuals like you? Because I imagine you have a choice if there are. I can go and get a doctor. I can go to a hospital, or I can go to a single practice, or maybe, three doctors that work together. Is that the same in the doula world?

Enza: So there are some bigger corporations that you have them… You have a corporate, like a specific corporation who will have doulas and lactation consultants, and it’s kind of like a one-stop shop. There are a few of those in the area. But mostly, we’re just self-employed. We’re one-man doula. How do you say that? One doula?

Paul: One-doula doulas.

Enza: One-doula doulas.

Paul: Doing doulas. Do— do…

Enza: Doula doulas.

Doula-ing From a Technology Point of View

 

Paul: So let’s talk about your business a little bit from a technology point of view. We helped you with your website and again, you made it very easy because you’ve got a great personality. You’ve got a great story to tell. You’ve got very engaged visitors. So, you know, you go to Amazon, and it’s like, “Well, do I want to buy that, or do I want to buy that?” And it’s very easy for you to passively just click off of that and go somewhere else.

When you’re considering a relationship with somebody that’s going to be there at your birth, it’s like, well that’s a little more intense. So, that’s a huge benefit to your website is that when you have that very motivated buyer or person engaged, we can present data to them, and they’re going to enough consume it. One of the most difficult things on the web right now is sort of our attention deficit disorder. You know, we always want the fastest things. Twitter is 140 characters. We want it all summarized, and we want to be able to think we’ve got it and go on. That’s not how people are wired to be, a million miles wide, and a millimeter thick. We’re wired like I think you’re discovering, and the value you offer is the depth of relationship.

And so, it’s key that a website communicates that.

WannaCry, Petya and Ransomeware – Why Protecting your Website is Important

 

Paul: Now you have heard, rightfully so, that there’s all these malware out there. These particular ones we’re talking about are WannaCry and Petya. So there’s these ransomwares out there, malware, specifically a ransomware called WannaCry and Petya. There’s many others as well. If you go to a website. You click on something. It might be an image or whatever it is or a link, and the process of doing that installs a piece of malicious software on your computer. And this is why it’s very important to have up-to-date antivirus and antimalware because hopefully your antivirus and antimalware will detect that and stop it.

The problem is there’s these things called zero-day exploits, which come out right now. It’s the zero day. So the virus company hasn’t had a chance to write the block for it. And so that’s what we’re seeing is a few weeks ago, we had WannaCry, which was an exploit based on some research and some weaponization that the NSA did. They created software that allowed them to infiltrate computers. WikiLeaks leaked that information and the details of how to create that, and it turned out it was an unpatched hole in a Microsoft operating system. Microsoft was very frustrated with the NSA because if they had told them about it, they would have patched it. But the NSA is in a spy game, so they don’t want to close the door. You know, it’s like you left the window open in your basement, and nobody knows about it. It’s not that obvious, but that’s effectively what it is. And so the NSA could crawl in through that window and do anything they wanted in the house.

And so WannaCry made this available to the world at large. Microsoft immediately patched it. But the problem is how does that patch get installed. Not everybody puts their patches on. Not everybody is concerned about the hygiene of their computer because it’s just out of sight, out of mind. They don’t know.

And what happened is a lot of people got bitten by WannaCry. Now WannaCry was written in such a way that if it got into your basement, it could use all the secret tunnels to all the other basements in town. Okay? It could literally connect to another computer connected to your Wi-Fi or to your LAN and infect that computer. And then on and on and on.

Well, so what? It infected it. Well, what they did was, there’s this whole thing going on now called ransomware where I go into your data, and I encrypt it and hold it hostage, that you cannot decrypt it. So it’s scrambled with a secret decoder ring that they haven’t given you. Then they pop up a message, and they say, “Oh, by the way, we’ve just encrypted all your data. And if you want to get it back, you have to pay us.” Now, 10 years ago, if you said, “How am I going to pay you? Because if I give you my credit card… First of all, I don’t want to give my credit card to a thief.” And if you send you a check, I’m sending it to somebody, and they go, and I’ll go to arrest them.

Well the appearance of Bitcoin, which is a somewhat anonymous way to transfer value, transfer finance, money, has come out. So now I can pay something to somebody by sending it to an address, and I can’t know where it goes after that. I can, but it’s very difficult to track down how it actually gets in the pocket of the criminal.

And so Bitcoin has done some really cool stuff. But it’s also enabled criminals to be able to extort money and not be explicitly caught, you know. Because you have the movie where you’ve got a hostage situation — bring me the bag of money — somebody has to physically pick up that money, that cash, and we can have a helicopter watching them, and then follow them to where they’re going. So that now has been mitigated by Bitcoin. I can’t put a helicopter up there watching where the money is going. And so it’s made ransomware a really attractive way to do things. So, the Petya Virus, which is fascinating, uses the exact same threat vector that the WannaCry used. Well, wait a minute. WannaCry came out a month ago or two months ago. Why didn’t the people patch it? Well, why didn’t they?

I don’t know why, you know, and so it’s sort of like, I come to your house, and I say, “Hey, your basement window is open in the back.”

And you say, “Oh, my gosh. That’s right.”

You know, and then I go to your neighbor’s. “Your basement window is open in the back.”

You lock yours. And you going to call the guy over to come over and fix the glass and fix it. Your neighbor didn’t do anything. So now there’s another exploit. We killed WannaCry, another exact same exploit with actually some more stuff added on. And it goes in and infects your neighbor’s basement.

Why Small Businesses Need to Back Up Data Too

 

Enza: So what you’re really saying is that everyone is susceptible to this. It’s not just targeted towards large corporations or large businesses.

Paul: Right. Yeah. There was some news reports where they were talking about this morning, Merck was targeted. They may have been targeted. There is a way to target things and try to do that and try to exploit a target. But most of it is just happening by circumstance, just propagation, just happening. People go places. Something bad happens. And the bad thing happens because they didn’t put all the protections in place.

Enza: So for us small business owners, my fellow doulas… So we just have to make sure that our security updates are where they need to be.

Paul: Well, that’s one thing. But the real important part here is you need to have a backup of your data. And now, different people understand or hear the word backup and interpret it differently. A backup does not mean a hard disk connected to your computer with a copy of your files on it. It’s technically not a backup. It is a second copy. But the issue is with WannaCry or, Petya, it will encrypt those files as well, because it’s connected. So in order for a backup to be a backup, it has to be separate and disconnected.

So if you’re going to make a copy of it — let’s put it in the simplest terms — you buy an external hard drive. You copy all of the files over to it. You disconnect that hard drive and put it in a bank vault. That is technically a backup because if the place where the computer is ceases to exist, oh, no big deal. I have my backup. Whereas, if it’s right next to your computer, and there’s a fire, the backup just burned up. So it’s not just a semantic argument about the word but really what is a true backup. No, that’s a copy of your files. A backup is a little bit more. So you say, “Well, wait a minute. It’s a real hassle to do that, take that disk, and move it to the bank every week or every day.” Uh, and yeah. It is. And that’s why most people don’t do good backups.

So now, given the speed of the Internet that we have in our homes and businesses, we can do online backup. So online backup’s great. Because what it can do is backup everything by the moment. So you go and type a letter in, and the minute you save it, it’s being backed up. But that’s still not good enough because I go and type a letter. I save it. I get the ransomware. It encrypts that files and backups up the file to the cloud. It’s encrypted on the cloud.

A key point of backup in the cloud is that you have to have multiple versions. And most of them offer that. We recommend Backblaze almost universally. So with Backblaze, you go to the web interface, you can say, “Okay, letter to Paul.” I can bring that up and it said, “Oh, you have a version from this day and a version from that day.” So the one on Thursday is when I got hit with the ransomware. That’s encrypted. But if I go back to the Wednesday version, it’s not encrypted. So at most, you lose a day’s worth of work. Or even not even that because it’s doing it continuously. So you should loose almost no work.

So all of that, all of those words, is the key is to have good backups that are up to date. You can feel great about saying I have an external hard drive, and I put it on the shelf next to my computer. That’s sort of a backup. As long as it’s disconnected it becomes a backup. My problem with that is that if there’s a fire, you don’t have that protection. So when you say, “Well, okay, I have an office. My computer is there, and then I’ll bring the disk home.” That’s a true backup. You know. But then you sort of forget. You’re busy. You’re running out. “Oh, I forgot to do the backup.” You really don’t want backups that are dependent on humans. You want to make sure that they’re just happening.

Enza: So what if you have been attacked by this ransomware?

Paul: You have to pay for it usually.

Enza: There’s no other way to get around it.

Paul: No. There have been ransomwares that people have figured out how to decrypt. Okay, so it is possible to do that. So for this particular ransomware, you have to send a certain amount of Bitcoin, a number that it indicates, a Bitcoin and a wallet to a certain email address which is no longer working. So if you’ve got encrypted, right now you’re in a no-man’s land because you can’t get your data back because the people were taking the money, their email address got shut down. So how do you get to the people that have the key to unlock your data?

Be Proactive With Data Backups

 

So it is so much easier just to be proactive about this stuff. I mean Backblaze for individual users, it’s $50 a year. It backs up unlimited amount of data. In businesses, we use that for all of our business clients for every user in the business has Backblaze on their machine. We also back up servers and all that kind of stuff. But there’s been too many cases where people are supposed to store things on the server and they don’t. And it’s the important spreadsheet or correspondence that they happen to have on their computer. And it’s now gone.

We’ve never been bitten by any of our clients getting ransomware or malware in that way, which hopefully will remain the case because we’re pretty diligent about patches. But, if there’s other people listening to us out there, you’ve gotta have a good backup. And I can’t sing the praises of Backblaze high enough. They’re just great. There’s other ones — Carbonate, Mozy… I’ve found that Backblaze just works so well.

Enza: So placing something on Google Drive is…

Paul: Well it depends. If you have Google Drive and you have the Google Drive app installed, that will encrypt it. It will encrypt everything on Google Drive. Because, if you notice, you just… When you save something on Google Drive, you don’t browse to a website. You go to that folder and just drop something in. Same thing with OneDrive, the same thing with DropBox and Box.com. All of those have the ability to sync to your computer. And if you’re using that sync, you go get the ransomware, it will encrypt everything there, and then push it up.

Now some of them — DropBox and, I think, Box — has versions. So you could go back. But I don’t know about Google Drive, if it has versions for everything. So that’s something to be concerned with. But even that, there is this assumption by people that, “Oh, I’m storing it in the cloud. I don’t need backup.”

That is not true. There hasn’t been that many catastrophes with online storage, but there could be. And they are not offering redundant, resilient storage as a general part of that. There will be the day when, “Oh, we’ve lost this and… sorry.” And we’ll point out in our contract where, “See? It says we weren’t guaranteeing it.” So it’s really incumbent upon you as a computer user to make your own backups.

So have I scared you?

Enza: I just need to go home and make sure that all of my security updates are…

Paul: Put a bag over your head. Right?

Enza: I need to make sure I’m patched.

Paul: That’s right. Do that. Have the doula do that.

Enza: Doula do.

Paul: Doula do. Dudly do the right. Sorry.

Paul: So we’ve been talking with Enza Lilley of A Mommy’s Friend doula…What’s the actual title? A Mommy’s Friend, period?

Enza: Mommy’s Friend Doula Service.

Paul: Doula service. Okay. And, she’s headquartered, or really, works geographically out of the North Shore, Massachusetts into Boston. And she helps moms bring new people into the world. Is that fair?

Enza: That’s fair. Thank you for having me.

Paul: Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure, and look for her, her book, and you were recently in Voyager Boston?

Enza: Yes. Boston Voyager.

Paul: Boston Voyager. Yes.

Enza: Boston Voyager online magazine.

Paul: Okay. Cool. So if you want to get some insight into that and your website is aMommysFriend.com.

Enza: Correct.

Paul: M-o-m-m-y-s friend.

Enza: Correct.

Paul: Okay. Well, thank you.

Enza: Thank you.

What’s Coola than a Doula?

Today on the Edge of Innovation, we are talking with Enza Lilley, a doula from “A Mommy’s Friend Doula Service” about her experiences as a Doula and small business owner on the North Shore of Boston.

 

Show Notes

Enza Lilley’s Website: www.amommysfriend.com

Find Enza Lilley on Facebook

Enza Lilley in the Boston Voyage Online Magazine

Link to SaviorLabs’ Free Assessment

Sections

Relationships, Business or both?
Committed to Clients – Being on Call 24/7
First Time Moms and Second Time Moms
A Happy Story and a Sad Story
Writing a Book of Doula Stories
The Business of Doula-ing
Dissolving Barriers – Being a Christian Doula

 

What’s Coola than a Doula?

Paul: Well hi! I’m here today with Enza Lilley.

Enza: Hello!

Paul: She’s headquartered, or really works geographically out of the North Shore of Massachucettes into Boston and she helps moms bring new people into the world.

Relationships, Business or both?

If you’re an accountant, a plumber, a repair guy, you know, you do dressmaking or whatever it might be, people form relationships, and that’s the key thing. And it sounds like, from what you’re saying, is you had an affinity for both the birth process and children but also for relationships. So, and that’s why, I guess, you were saying it’s really a good fit, the idea of doula because you’re building a relationship and a bond.

So how many of these moms do you keep in touch with?

Enza: Wow. Probably about 180 of them. Facebook is great for that.

Paul: Wow. So you’ve shared a very important part of their life in bringing these people up. And you seem to, I just saw an article. What was the recent article? What magazine was it in?

Enza: Boston Voyager?

Paul: Boston Voyager, and it was sort of an interview with you. And one of the things that was interesting is it had a picture of you and your babies, as you call them. So what, what’s the deal with that? You seem to really like these babies.

Enza: I do love my babies. I’m invited to baby dedications, baby baptisms, first birthdays. I try and have a thank-you party for my clients at the end of the year. Moms and I get together for coffee afterwards. We chat about, you know, nursing, or breastfeeding or pediatrician visits. And we do really form a great relationship.

Paul: So, that just seems… I mean, maybe all doulas do that. Do they?

Enza: I don’t think so.

Paul: So do you have… I mean, you don’t think so, but you must have anecdotal information or people saying that. Is it just a job to some?

Enza: I have been told that I get too personal with my clients from other doulas.

Paul: Oh, from other doulas. But not from the moms.

Enza: Not from the moms.

Paul: So the moms aren’t saying, “Whoa. Stop.” I mean, how can you be, really, any more personal? You know, so it’s like other doulas are saying… What’s the motivation there? Are they talking about a disconnectedness?

Enza: This is a business. They say this is a business. It should be separated from your personal life. You are there to be with them during birth, and it shouldn’t carry on afterwards.

Paul: And what’s their reason for that?

Enza: It’s a business. Why would you mix business with pleasure?

Paul: Why wouldn’t you, if you could?

Enza: That’s my question exactly.

Paul: Okay. Alright. Well, I mean, if you can find a business you love, I was just reading a quote, you know, “Work is…” Oh, I’m never going to remember it. But basically the idea that if you can find something you love, it’s not work anymore. So, I’m trying to think of if we were to redefine your view of the world, how you would deal with that because even if you were just doing it from a customer service point of view to call them up and say, “Hey, how you doing?” I mean, we had our washer fixed two weeks ago and Sears called and says, “How’s it going? Are you happy with our service?” Well, is that too personal? You know, they’re not. But they’re talking about our washer. I mean, it’s not a personal issue. But it sounds like the person, the critical nature of the comment they made was not about the personal level of information but just the involvement, the engagement level.

And so that’s very interesting. So that seems to be an assumed position. Has this been a lot of doulas? I mean, what’s the downside? I don’t see. Unless you don’t like people. I mean, like me. I could go to a party and bring a magazine. So, not that I don’t like people. It’s just not natural for me.

Enza: I guess if another doula doesn’t want her personal life to be on display. Because you’re going to have… If you go to a coffee together, you’re going to have to… There’s going to be back and forth discussion. You’re going to have to bring up your family. You’re going to have to talk about the things you’re doing this summer. Does that make sense?

Paul: Well, it’s not for a private person who says, “Oh, you can’t know anything about me.”

Enza: Right.

Paul: So it’s like, your doctor. You probably have… Whoever your doctor is, you probably don’t know what they’re doing for vacation this year.
Enza: I do.

Paul: That’s one of your gifts, extracting that. You’re a military intelligence person.

Enza: That’s right.

Paul: Yes.

Enza: My husband calls me sergeant major.

Paul: Yes, ma’am. So, that’s very interesting. So do you think of the doulas you know, what percentage are the, “I’m in this for the relationship, for the long haul, for treating them as a person and as a family,” or, “I’m in this for the business”?

Enza: Wow. That’s hard. I’d probably say 80% of them are in for the business.

Paul: Really. Now, I mean, that’s not altogether bad. But it doesn’t sound like the Cadillac of it.

Enza: If you’re in it to make money, and there’s money to be made, especially if you work in the Boston area, doulas can make as much as 1200 to $1500 per birth, which is pretty good. My training was in Iowa. Doulas in Nebraska/Iowa area make 350 to 400. So, you know, 1200 to 1500 is great. So if you really are focused on making money, and that is your focus, then it is your business. For me, it’s not my business. I don’t do this to get rich. It’s my ministry. I feel like women who want a doula deserve a doula. If I joke that if I was living in the 1800s and I was a doula, I would be paid in chickens and canned beans, beef jerky that was dried from the venison, you know. But that’s how I work. The money is great. When I get paid, it’s great. But if you can’t afford me, then I’m still willing to be able to sit with you and talk to you and help you out.

Committed to Clients – Being on Call 24/7

Paul: Oh, interesting. Wow. So it does sound like it’s more of an experience almost for what you’re doing. Because I know that just having talked with you, you get interrupted to… You said here, before we started recording, “I’m waiting for a birth.”

Enza: I am.

Paul: So, you know that phone goes off, and you’re gone. And you don’t know if it’s going to be an hour or 72 hours. And no matter what you were doing, you know, you had concert tickets, well, it’s too bad.

Enza: I’ve missed a lot over the last 10 years.

Paul: That’s a big cost. What do you think of that? Does seeing the babies counter that?

Enza: Yeah. There’s a loyalty there. There’s a commitment. I’m committed to be there, no matter what. And, I mean, I do have backups. But I like to see it from the start to finish. That does give me joy, you know, to be able to say, “I was there. Here’s this beautiful baby. We worked together as a team.”

Paul: Yeah. It does sound very rewarding. I mean, to shepherd these people through this experience.

First Time Moms and Second Time Moms

Paul: Is there a contrast between first-time moms and second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh-time moms?

Enza: I love my first-time moms because they know nothing. And — this sounds terrible, but — they do what I tell them. And they’re happy. Second-time moms, they know what’s going to happen. They know what it’s going to feel like, and they can be really cranky.

Paul: I see. So is that second-time moms that are second-time for you?

Enza: Yes.

Paul: Okay. So it’s just a second time, no matter where you’re form.

Enza: Yes. Yes.

Paul: Okay. Interesting. I can’t imagine it. You know, I get a paper cut and I’m all messed up.

A Happy Story and a Sad Story

I asked you the question earlier about anecdotal stories or interesting things that have happened. Has anything come to mind?

Enza: You want happy stories or do you want sad stories?

Paul: Well, I, I don’t know. I mean, maybe one of each.

Enza: So, one of my stories, was a mom who was delivering at the birth center, and everything was going really well. But, after a very long labor, she decided she really wanted an epidural. So we transferred her over to the hospital, and she got her epidural and everything was going wonderfully. At some point, we saw that there was meconium in the amniotic fluid, which just means that the baby pooped. Which also means we need to careful when the baby is born. Sometimes the baby can inhale the meconium, and we don’t want that to happen.

But in the midst of pushing, my client didn’t hear that, although there was meconium, the baby was fine. So when the baby was born, they had to take the baby directly over to the warmer instead of putting baby on mom’s chest.

Paul: Was this her first child?

Enza: This was her first child. And the baby was doing great, but she didn’t hear any of that. And I happened to look over at her, and her mouth is drooping, and she’s got tears coming down, but she couldn’t talk. And I thought she was having a stroke. And I looked at the midwife who looked at the OB, and the OB said, “Oh, she’s in shock.” And I just kept looking at her and saying, “What can I do? What’s wrong?” You know, “Talk to me.” And she wouldln’t talk to me.

And, it was devastating. I didn’t know what was going on.

Paul: I can imagine. Yeah.

Enza: And then this was just a matter of, like, three or four minutes. They were suctioning the baby. The baby was great. They took the baby back over to mom. They laid baby on mom’s chest, and all of a sudden, she just let out this heart-wrenching wail. And she’s sobbing, and she looks down at her baby, and she says, “My baby, my baby, my baby.” And I found out later that she thought the baby had died. She, you know, she was so intense in that moment that she didn’t hear that he was okay. And so that was pretty intense.

So I’m going to use the same client, because then she hired me for baby number two. And the second story is wonderful. I got to her house, and she was contracting every five minutes, and, at every five minutes, she would, you know, grunt a little bit and groan. And then in between that, she would go, “Oh-hoo-hoo-hoo.”

Paul: This is too much information. This is a PG show.

Enza: And I would say, “What is that? Is that a contraction?”

And she would say, “No, the baby’s moving.”

So we continue for a while, and then I realize that when her groans and moans got a little bit more intense, that those were indeed contractions that she was feeling. So instead of being every five minutes, they were every two minutes. So we were in Danvers. We headed to hospital in Beverly. Her husband takes the wrong exit. At this point, I’m in the back seat with her, and I’m screaming, “Don’t push!”

And she’s screaming, “I have to!”

So we make it to the birth center. The midwives had to literally help us carry her out of the car. We threw her in the tub, and within a few seconds, she had pushed out this beautiful baby girl. So those are some of my great stories.

Writing a Book of Doula Stories

Paul: That’s fun. Now I don’t know if this is preempting it, but you’re writing a book.

Enza: I am.

Paul: And is it a telephone book? Or what’s it about?

Enza: I guess you could call it my memoirs.

Paul: Your memoirs. Okay. Usually you have a ghostwriter write those for you, but yes.

Enza: I am writing doula stories.

Paul: Who wants to read that book?

Enza: I hope that everyone will want to read these books.

Paul: Okay. So you’re making it for everybody.

Enza: Moms, dads, other doulas, midwives. Yes.

Paul: And now most people would love to write a book. And if you listen to writes, you have to write one page at a time. And now you’ve sort of announced this — what? — A couple of months ago, wasn’t it?

Enza: Oh, a month ago.

Paul: A month ago.

Enza: Four weeks now.

Paul: So have you gotten any pages written?

Enza: 41.

Paul: 41. Well, see that’s really good. That’s really encouraging.

Enza: I have no idea what I’m doing.

Paul: Are the letters in the right order?

Enza: They are.

Paul: Okay. So that’s really the main thing here, that matters. So what is your hope to do with that? You wanted to… is it mostly cathartic, or is it that you really think that people will benefit from it, or both? Or you want to get to sell the movie rights, you know?

Enza: I would love Julia Roberts to play me. I’s cathartic. I would hope that parents that read it are encouraged. I hope that other doulas that read it can learn from the ways I encourage or just to learn from my mistakes and how not to repeat those mistakes. That’s just a little bit of everything.

Paul: Interesting. Well, we’ll look forward to that. Maybe we can have a discussion about it when it’s out and see how that goes.

The Business of Doula-ing

Paul: Now you had talked a little bit about the business of doula-ing. Is that a word?

Enza: I think we’ve made it a word.

Paul: We’ve made it a word? Doula-ing.

Enza: Doula-ing.

Paul: Dueling. Dueling doulas. Uh, no. Never mind. I could go there. So how busy does this keep you? Because I know you’re at the beck and call of when the baby’s coming. So that’s interruptive. But what about all the other time? How is that?

Enza: So I try and have between three to four clients per month. There are doulas that have a little bit more. There are some that have a little bit less. I don’t go very crazy with three to four. So it’s scheduling the prenatal meetings. So that means I have— what? — four, eight, twelve, twelve meetings.

Paul: So it sounds like if you have… Are you saying three births a month?

Enza: Three to four births per month.

Paul: Wow. Because if they were ideal, they’d be every Wednesday, let’s say. That’s keeping you pretty busy because you’re not going in… I mean, at best case, it’s probably six hours.

Enza: Average is 12.

Paul: Average is 12. Okay. That’s a lot of time. So every Wednesday you are gone, basically. And you gotta recover from that. And then you also have to do the stuff around that with your clients.

Enza: Correct. Plus your post-partum meetings. I stay pretty busy.

Paul: Yeah. It sounds like it.

Enza: And in the fall, I usually have about five births per month.

Paul: So you’re really hopping. I mean, you’re really moving along. Have you ever thought about sort of getting other doulas to work with you? Or how does that work? Is that possible?

Enza: Yes. There’s a lot of doulas that work together. I’ve thought about it. I’m probably in a position now where I could afford to hire another doula. But it just goes back, again, to wanting to be there from the beginning to the end and just seeing it through.

Paul: I would imagine a lot of the value… Small businesses take on the personality of their owner in a lot of ways. I mean, that might be defined as successful ones, if they have a good personality. So that would be an important aspect, I think, for you to do, is to multiply yourself, is trying to figure out how do I find somebody that has the same values and philosophy. And that’s a difficult order, you know. I think you have a great philosophy. But if you’re a curmudgeon, you’ve gotta go out and hire a curmudgeon, you know. Or they’re going to be at loggerheads with you.

Dissolving Barriers – Being a Christian Doula

Enza: And I’m a Christian. So if I have clients who desire Christians to be in the birth room, it’s even harder to find another doula who is a Christian and not into the New Age or things like that. So that makes it even more difficult.

Paul: Has that presented problems for you, being in Christian in these circumstances?

Enza: Never.

Paul: Wow. Okay.

Enza: I was interviewed by a Wiccan several years ago who told me to absolutely not pray or mention the word “God” in the delivery room, and I said, “I will be very professional. I am here to support you.” And halfway through, she grabbed my hands and asked me to pray for her.

Paul: So she hired you.

Enza: So she did hire me.

Paul: So she hired you. That’s a big deal.

Enza: I’ve been hired by quite a few.

Paul: So that’s sort of like somebody in Israel hiring somebody from, you know, next door to, you know. It’s just that it doesn’t seem like it’d be natural.

Enza: Right.

Paul: I guess that says a lot about the quality of your work and your personality and the effectiveness there. So that something that might be a barrier really dissolves away. That’s cool.

So we’ve been talking with Enza Lilley of A Mommy’s Friend doula…What’s the actual title? A Mommy’s Friend?

Enza: Mommy’s Friend Doula Service.

Paul: Doula service. Okay. And, she’s headquartered, or really, works geographically out of the North Shore, Massachusetts into Boston. And she helps moms bring new people into the world.

Enza: Thank you for having me.

Paul: Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure!


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