The Newborn Stage of Your Doula Business: Why You Feel Like You’re Drowning (and Why That’s Normal)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how motherhood and entrepreneurship are actually the same damn thing.

Everybody loves to talk about the glow, the freedom, the purpose, the doing-what-you-love part, but nobody really talks about that first messy season. The one where you feel like you’re failing every day, like you’re doing everything wrong, and like maybe you made the biggest mistake of your life.

You know what I mean?

Like, the newborn stage.

When I think back to those early days after having my son Enzo, and those early days starting my doula business, it’s eerie how similar they were.

The exhaustion. The identity crisis. The guilt. The “am I even doing this right?” loop playing in your head on repeat.

You’re learning something brand new, and it doesn’t come with a manual.

It’s emotional. It’s humbling. It’s disorienting.

And that’s the part nobody really warns you about, in motherhood or in business.

The Identity Shift of Motherhood and Business

I remember my pregnancy being textbook. It was empowering. I felt strong, confident, and deeply connected to my body.

I had the birth I dreamed of, unmedicated, powerful, and completely aligned with my intuition. It was one of those “holy shit, I did that” moments that changes you forever.

Before that, I had the career that made sense on paper. Six figures, bonuses, all-expense-paid trips, a fat 401k.

I had structure, goals, and control. I knew how to “succeed.”

And then I stepped into entrepreneurship, and I felt like I was drowning.

Not because I wasn’t capable, but because everything that used to make me feel safe, the systems, the validation, the structure, was gone.

Suddenly, I was in this wide-open space where I had to rely on myself, my creativity, my energy, my intuition, and at first, it felt terrifying.

I went from performing at the top of my game to feeling like I didn’t even know the rules anymore.

Sound familiar?

The Newborn Stage of Entrepreneurship

The truth is, early entrepreneurship feels like those early postpartum days.

You’re emotional. You’re uncertain. You’re sleep-deprived, but instead of baby cries, it’s your own brain screaming at you about what you “should” be doing.

You want so badly to get it right.

You scroll, you compare, you doubt yourself.

You overthink every move, every post, every caption, every offer, the same way you overanalyzed every feeding, every nap, every diaper.

You’re constantly asking, “Is this normal? Am I doing enough?”

It’s the same pattern, that need for reassurance, that constant measuring yourself against people who seem like they’ve got it together.

But just like in motherhood, there is no perfect. There’s only learning.

There’s only getting through the day, one messy, beautiful, imperfect step at a time.

Control Doesn’t Create Confidence

I look back on that postpartum season and see how much pressure I put on myself to be the perfect mom.

I thought I had to love every second. I thought I had to be grateful all the time. I thought the anxiety and loneliness meant I was doing something wrong.

I forced things. I ignored my intuition. I tried to control my healing, my emotions, my experience.

And it didn’t work.

Because you can’t out-think transformation. You can only feel your way through it.

That’s the same realization I had to face in business.

At first, I tried to do everything “right.” Follow the formulas. Use the trendy strategies. Post like the “successful” people.

But every time I followed someone else’s roadmap, I felt like I was moving further away from myself.

I wasn’t showing up as me, and that’s why it felt so exhausting.

Authenticity is Strategy

It took me a long time to realize that what makes someone magnetic online isn’t their perfection, it’s their presence.

It’s not the formula. It’s not the strategy. It’s how safe people feel around your energy.

That’s why the work I teach inside Sell to Serve, my doula business coaching program, always starts with confidence.

Because when you trust yourself, when you stop trying to sound like everyone else and start sounding like you, everything changes.

Confidence isn’t about being loud. It’s about being rooted.

It’s knowing that you can show up in your full humanity, your humor, your sarcasm, your softness, and that’s exactly what makes you unforgettable.

When I was a new mom, I didn’t trust that. I thought I had to be calm and gentle all the time.

When I was a new business owner, I thought I had to be polished and professional all the time.

But what actually connected me to people, in motherhood and in business, was when I stopped pretending I had it all together.

When I started telling the truth.

The truth that some days I loved motherhood and some days I hated it.

The truth that I missed my old life sometimes.

The truth that I was terrified I wouldn’t make it as an entrepreneur.

And every time I told the truth, someone said, “Oh my God, me too.”

That’s when I realized: authenticity is strategy.

You don’t need a formula when you’re brave enough to be real.

The Feminine Energy of Confidence

Confidence is the most feminine, creative energy there is.

It’s not about forcing. It’s about trusting your rhythm.

That’s what I had to learn in both motherhood and business, that confidence doesn’t come from control, it comes from surrender.

When you stop trying to fix everything and start allowing yourself to feel, that’s when things start to flow.

You stop hustling. You start listening. You start creating from a place of truth instead of fear.

And your energy shifts. You become magnetic.

Confidence isn’t about knowing it all. It’s about being okay with not knowing, and showing up anyway.

Success is Village-Made

And listen, I didn’t do this alone.

When I look back at what actually carried me through each season, motherhood, entrepreneurship, all of it, it wasn’t the strategies. It was the people.

The women who believed in me. The mentors who reminded me who I am when I forgot.

The doulas who’ve been with me from the beginning. My OG accountability pod, who are now inside Sell to Serve. My family, my husband, my parents, my siblings.

They’re my village.

And if you don’t have that yet, find it.

Because success isn’t self-made. It’s village-made.

We are not meant to do this alone.

You’re Not Behind. You’re Becoming.

There’s a lie in entrepreneurship that if you’re struggling, it means you’re not cut out for it. That if you were “meant for this,” it would feel easy.

But that’s not true.

You don’t get strong without resistance. You don’t build confidence without chaos.

Real growth happens when you’re in the arena, trying, failing, pivoting, trusting.

When you stop looking for someone to hand you the exact steps and start asking yourself:
What feels aligned for me?
What do I actually believe in?
What do I want this to look like?

That’s when you start leading instead of copying.

And that’s the moment your business starts to feel like home.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re stuck in the newborn stage, whether in your business, your motherhood, or your identity, please hear me when I say this:

You’re not behind. You’re becoming.

This is your cocoon. It’s supposed to feel tight and uncomfortable.

You’re not meant to go back to who you were. You’re meant to evolve.

And that takes time.

Just like babies don’t walk before they crawl, your business isn’t supposed to take off before it’s ready.

Your only job is to nurture it. To feed it. To show up for it. Even when it’s inconvenient. Even when you don’t see results yet.

That’s the deeper work. That’s the Sell to Serve work.

The work that builds identity and confidence that lasts longer than any algorithm.

Confidence is a Life Skill

I’m still learning this too. I still have days where I question everything, where I feel like I should be further ahead.

But now, I don’t spiral.

Because I’ve learned to trust the rhythm of my own growth.

To know that every season, even the hard ones, is teaching me something about who I am and what I’m capable of.

And that’s where real confidence comes from, not from constant wins, but from being willing to show up through the mess.

Confidence isn’t just a business skill. It’s a life skill.

So if you’re in that messy, uncertain season right now, take a breath. Remember how far you’ve come. Remember everything you’ve survived.

You’re not failing. You’re becoming.

You might not see the harvest yet, but you’re planting seeds.

And when the rhythm finally clicks, when it starts to feel like second nature, you’ll look back and realize it was never chaos. It was creation.

This is the work. And it’s worth it.