Salt in the Wound, Hope in the Heart

A doula’s longing for the life she helps others build

My work is deeply human, dynamic, beautiful, and sometimes really hard.

I’ve supported over seventy families in their most vulnerable seasons. I’ve held tiny babies through their first nights, sat with mothers navigating identity shifts and recovery, and poured my whole self into helping others settle into the life I’m still waiting to live myself.

I’m not lost or incomplete, but a true desire holds: being a mother feels natural and intuitive.

I don’t just want a baby or babies, I want a marriage that feels real and rooted. A love that knows how to surrender to God first. A home where the little things matter, like shared prayer, laughter in the kitchen, and someone to lean into at the end of each day. I want to fall in love with someone steady and kind, someone I can soften with and build a family alongside.

Some days, that ache catches me off guard. It bubbles up quietly between client calls or in the car after a long shift. It’s not bitterness by any means, but a longing, a deep awareness that while I’m holding space for others, there’s a part of me still waiting to be held and to hold my own.

I’ve learned not to push it away. I don’t need to force joy or bypass pain. I’m allowed to feel everything fully, side by side, both my ache and my awe, and my longing and the presence. The reality is that life can be so full and still have room for more.

One freeing thing I’ve realized? We can live in duality.

I can ache and still yearn for this life.

I can experience grief and still feel joy.

I can be content and still long for more.

I don’t have to choose one or the other.

These concepts are not a contradiction, they are integration.

Real wholeness looks like holding two truths at once, without shame or judgment. To remain present to what is, and curious about what’s still unfolding. With this curiosity, we can live with this tension without needing to solve it.

This is the rhythm I keep returning to: be aware, remain curious, accept where I am and what is, and if or when I’m able, take action on resolving the matter.

I let it be true, feel it, and then take the next gentle step forward.

I believe the man I’ll build a life with is becoming too. I trust God is weaving our stories even now, quietly and carefully. While that unfolds, I don’t wait in stillness. I live and will live boldly and softly. I keep showing up. I keep surrendering. I keep holding both the ache and the hope, side by side.

If you’re in this season too, wanting, waiting, and showing up anyway, know you’re not alone.

We are not behind. We are not too much. We are becoming.

The life we desire? It isn’t on hold until love arrives.

It’s happening right here in the duality, in the mystery, and in the becoming.