I am really excited to announce something new at Eleison Doula Services. We are now providing doula support at the beginning AND end of life. My husband Nicholas has joined me as a certified End-of-Life Doula, adding to the birth and postpartum services that I offer. Please check out our new website and let us know what you think!

When I decided to train as a birth doula with BirthWell Partners in 2020, and then to seek certification as a labor and postpartum doula with ProDoula, Nicholas was my strong support and advocate, the doula behind the doula, if you will. We spent many hours talking about the role of a doula, the importance of holding space, listening, offering non-judgmental and compassionate support. We talked about how much my work as a doula had in common with his love for working with senior adults and his assistance with church ministry. And then we started to learn more about the emerging end-of-life doula movement, and everything seemed to be converging on the idea that Nicholas should be an end-of-life doula. I am so proud of him for becoming certified by Lifespan Doulas, a professional doula organization that maintains high professional standards of providing unbiased, nonjudgmental support for all end-of-life clients, and to be able to work alongside him in developing the Eleison Doula Services company to offer support across the spectrum from birth to death.

The name Eleison Doula Services is very significant to both of us. Eleison means “mercy” in Greek, and we believe that it summarizes the compassion and empathy that we strive to provide in our doula care. Kyrie eleison, or “Lord have mercy,” is a phrase that we hear repeated frequently in the services of our church tradition, the Eastern Orthodox Church, so it holds a special spiritual significance for both of us. And we believe that whatever your religious convictions and traditions (or lack thereof), spirituality comes into sharp focus during life’s transitional moments of birth and death. Last year, I wrote about this in my blog post on the spirituality of birth. It is perhaps even more apparent as a person confronts their mortality and their transition beyond the earthly life experience.

Amy Wright Glenn, in her book Birth, Breath, and Death: Meditations on Motherhood, Chaplaincy, and Life as a Doula, writes: “The holiest journey leads the pilgrim into the depths of the human heart. One must simply dive inside. There it is. Love imbues all experience, including silence and sound, form and emptiness. Hurt, pain, and anger are acknowledged, honored, and more deeply understood due to spiritual practice.” Whether witnessing the first or the final moments of a life, Eleison Doulas walk alongside our clients and their families to nurture this inward journey. Whether you and your doula are of the same faith or not, your doula can support you in finding and expressing your own spiritual meaning in birth and in death. Kyrie eleison!