Today we’d like to introduce you to Hannah Norton.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was four years old the first time I remember roll-playing with the idea of birth. My younger years were full of curiosity about pregnancy, baby development, and the birth process. Being the oldest of five Children, I had ample opportunity to witness my mother experience pregnancy and bring home a newborn. When I was nine years old, I read a biography about a missionary doctor in India. Due to his gender, he was not allowed to provide medical services to females in the area he served, and many women and babies suffered undue health risks because of their lack of access to proper medical care. Ultimately, the daughter of this missionary doctor returned to the states, received her medical degree, and returned to India to offer high quality medical services to the females in that culture. Ida Scudder continued her mission in India for many years. Reading this story birthed in me and even deeper passion for birth and women’s health.
At the time of my high school graduation, I determined the best pathway forward was to pursue a pre-med degree and eventually pursue a specialty as an OBGYN. I attended my first year of college with this goal in mind. However, between finances and realizing that the life of a physician would not allow space for family and motherhood, I switched my degree to nursing.
I began offering lay doula services to friends and family while I was in nursing school. In 2004, I attended my first birth as a doula. That year I also shadowed a midwife on her rounds. I knew OB was where I would settle.
I graduated with my RN in 2006 and immediately took a job at a local childbirth unit. I spent 6 1/2 years as a labor and delivery nurse experiencing both the joys and sorrows of the birth space and longing to have a way to provide more personalized and holistic services to the mamas I was serving there.
In 2009, I had my first child. My husband and I took the Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth classes to prepare for that experience, and I both struggled and triumphed through a natural birth to bring him earthside. The power and beauty that I found in that space lit the candle even brighter to see more women have the same opportunity.
In 2010, my husband and I began teaching birth classes together. We modified many of the things that we had learned from our careers and experiences and consolidated the information into a four-week series. Marathon Birth Training was born.
I continued to work as a floor nurse on labor and delivery until after my second son was born. In 2012, I stepped out of the clinical setting and took a position as a home care case manager while continuing to teach birth classes and occasionally offer doula services to local families.
By 2019, I now had six sons. My first two were both born at the hospital where I worked, but we chose to have our last four at home with certified midwives. Each experience once again cemented that birth was my passion field. At this point, I no longer had a formal position in the birth world, and I wondered what my pathway may be to continue to be involved.
In 2020, my sister asked if I could come be her doula at the birth of her first child. Due to covid, a paper certification was required for me to be able to enter the birth suite with her. My past doula experience and my statues as an RN would not suffice. So, I jumped into an online program to check the boxes. I passed that program with flying colors, received my certification and showed up at my sister’s birth only to be told that they still were not allowing doulas on the floor because of disease transmission risk! This pushed my buttons. I realized that to provide high quality birth support services, I would need to be strong, brave, bold, and yet kind.
Throughout 2020, I practiced as a solo doula – privately contracting and taking on my clients and providing non medical physiologic birth support services. The hardest part of all of this – and the part that had me ready to quit within the year – was the unpredictable schedule and the need to be on call 24/7/365. My family was suffering. I was suffering. And I was ready to let go of what I loved.
Through contacts with a few friend doulas and discussing our struggles, I suggested creating a partnership model of care where we could create healthy life balance with our work and families and take call on a schedule rather than be on around the clock. In 2021, Birth Doulas of Michiana was born. We started out with five doulas privately contracting with clients and working a rotating call schedule (similar to midwife practices) and by 2025 we had grown to a team of 8 doulas serving from Kalamazoo to South Bend and Michigan City to Elkhart.
Throughout the past five years, I have also grown in my passion to see more education available to local clients – Marathon Birth Training has continued to expand. We now offer the course in southwest Michigan 4-5 times per year. I want to see our area and surrounding areas provided with more high-quality practitioners – so I created a doula certification program and began training doulas in 2023. I aim to put Marathon Birth Training in a book form at some point and eventually hope to find myself almost exclusively in the education sphere in order to leave space for these new doulas to invest in the birth space and long term leave a legacy.
My passion in the birth space and in training doulas is to see women discover the strength and the beauty of childbirth. It is not an event that is to be feared. It is natural. Normal. Beautiful.
In 2021, I began training as a mental health and life coach and now see the value of adding these services to my doula portfolio. I often use the illustration of a wedding. We spend so much time preparing for the perfect day, the dress, the details, the invitations, the program, and then suddenly we realize that our energy went into the wedding day, but we still have a whole marriage ahead of us. One of my main goals currently is to help my clients prepare for a positive birth, but more so to realize that a huge life change and adjustment is on the horizon. They can have the most beautiful birth, but if they are not well prepared to transition into the role of mother (and they quickly realize that title is a long term and permanent one) they are risking susceptibility to postpartum issues – such as depression, anxiety, rage, and trauma.
My heart is to see women experience pregnancy, birth, and the transition into postpartum and motherhood in a whole and healthy way, learning to understand how to control what they are able to, release the rest, and honor the journey they are on.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It’s been a surprising road. I thought I was going to simply be a doctor, working a day job and on call shifts. Then nursing was a completely different turn. The doula journey has surprised me as I’ve gotten busier than I ever dreamed and the partnership has been a sweet surprise blessing that has allowed me to continue in this role that I love.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
As a small business owner, I am passionate about the personal experience. When I have a consultation with a client, my first goal is to get to know them. Their following visits, calls, and meetings are tailored specifically to their needs and desires. Some families want more technical education of the birth process, some need more emotional support, some need encouragement and reminders of who they really are on the inside. Often, I share evidence-based information from credible sources and research studies. I have cultivated a rich community of other local professionals to be sure my clients are receiving high quality care in any area where they may require a referral.
Marathon Birth Training – our cutting edge four-week birth class series – is based on the premise that the day a woman gets pregnant, she signed up for a marathon. And like it or not race day is coming. We spend four weeks focusing on choosing your course (developing an evidence based and empowered birth plan, learning to manage contractions, and guaranteeing a successful birth), preparing for your course (nutrition, exercises, fetal positioning, and mental and emotional preparation for labor and birth), running your course (understanding the labor process, knowing what to do in each stage and phase of labor), and finishing strong and recovering well (postpartum recovery, newborn care, breastfeeding basics, and an overview of infant CPR).
Great Expectations Doula Training – is a holistic birth doula certification course that includes all of the standard doula training plus additional self-reflective, business management, whole person care approach to a doula business and lifestyle. One of our main goals is to produce doulas who feel like they can set healthy boundaries, maintain the balance of their career across the lifespan, offer high quality services to their clients, and manage the stress and at times trauma of a very grueling job.
Birth Doulas of Michiana – our local birth doula partnership offers a collaborative team approach to doula services. Our clients are never boxed into a due date call window or limited hours of availability. We are present whenever they need support. Our clients have access to multiple cross discipline specialties within our partnership model – from mental health coaching to baby wearing, infant massage, and prenatal and postpartum exercise, we work together to assure all needs are met. Our team shares call hours to assure that our clients receive doula support that is present, attuned, compassionate, and engaged to help meet their needs during this transformative time.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Risk taking: I’m usually fairly conservative. I don’t play the lottery. I’m not interested in bungee jumping. I don’t drive fast. And I even play cards safe. But with a doula business, the pathway is never predictable, and the road often takes turns we don’t expect.
When I first started doula work in 2004, I thought I would just provide occasional services to friends and family while relying on my steady job as a nurse. In 2020, when I needed that paper certification, I believed solo practice was my forte, and I fell easily into the competitive (and sometimes catty) atmosphere of solo doula work. At that time I was only able to logistically support one mama per month and still maintain some sense of sanity – my longest birth that year was 37 1/2 hours of continuous doula support. Once I helped co-found the partnership, I envisioned being able to take a few more clients, and now, the bravery of leaning into this new team approach has opened doors for family travel, presence with my kiddos, continuing education, developing new programs, and supporting more mamas than I ever thought possible.
Risk – does it always pay off? No. But you never know unless you try.
Pricing:
- $90 Birth Planning Session
- $300 Marathon Birth Training
- $1250 Doula Support Package
- $65 Mental Health Coaching
- $450 Doula Certification Program
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.greatexpectationsmichiana.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/great_expectations_doula/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greatexpectationsdoula/about/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@greatexpectationschildbirt1084
- Other: https://www.birthdoulasofmichiana.com
