When my first daughter Kailey was born, I thought I was ready. I had spent ten years as a nanny. I knew babies, I knew routines, I knew how to soothe a newborn at 3am. What I wasn't prepared for was doing it completely alone.

For six weeks before Kailey's birth, El Niño had brought constant rain to San Francisco. My husband was in construction, and without work, we had been living on my nanny income alone. On the day she was born, the rain finally stopped and he had to go back.

I was discharged from hospital just 23 hours after giving birth. No family nearby, they were all back in Ireland. My friends were working, or wrapped up in their own babies and their own lives. And so I came home with my newborn, and I was on my own.

I had stitches. I had cracked nipples. Every part of me felt fragmented, physically, emotionally, in every way. When Kailey cried, I cried. I didn't know where one of us ended and the other began.

Years later, when I first heard about postpartum doula support, something clicked into place. I thought: that's what I needed. That's what so many mothers need and don't know exists.

I trained first with Natural Resources, then went on to certify with DONA International, the world's gold standard in doula training. Not because I needed to be taught how to care for a baby, but because I wanted to be fully equipped to care for the mother. To show up the way no one had shown up for me.

That is my vocation. I don't want a single mother in my care to feel the way I felt in those early days, alone, overwhelmed, and invisible in her struggle.