Hi. I’m Kelly, founder of Doulas of San Diego.
I built this company to fill the gap no one else was structured to fill: the first six weeks at home, delivered by a real team. We’re now in our fourth year of doing exactly that.
Let's talk
How this started.
I didn’t start here. My first career was in mental health — I went to graduated with my Masters Degree in Counseling, and I practiced as one for years.
Then, in 2013, I was pregnant with my first, looking for doulas the same way you might be right now. I hired labor doulas and had birth experiences that were completely different from my friends’ — not because my births went to plan (they didn’t), but because I had skilled people in the room. The contrast between having that during labor and not having it afterward was stark. My postpartums were hard. And when I looked around, I realized the same gap was everywhere: families pouring all their preparation into birth and arriving home to almost nothing.
That’s when I started thinking we could build something different — not just for one birth, but for the six weeks after.
Why we became a team.
I became a doula in 2018 and practiced solo for the first four years. The work was meaningful, and it also showed me exactly why the solo-doula model keeps failing families. Life happens to doulas. We get sick. Our kids need us. A family member gets a diagnosis. And suddenly the one person a family hired is unavailable at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday. There’s no reliable backup. No hand-off. Just a gap right when families need us most.
In 2022, I opened Doulas of San Diego with a different operating model: a team of employed doulas — rested, reliable, accountable, and trained together. Not a matching service. Not a contractor network. An actual team, and one I knew I could be proud of.
We rebranded from Doulas of North County last year as our work expanded across the county. We’re in our fourth year, and this is still the company I set out to build.
What we're here to do.
Fill the gap.
The first six weeks after a birth are the most under-supported stretch of modern parenthood — and the stretch where the quality of care most changes how a family starts. That’s the gap we exist to close. Everything about our team, our training, and our model is organized around that single promise.
How we show up.Â
What you can expect from every doula on the team.
Calm and unhurried. We don’t rush. We don’t perform. We do the work in front of us and we do it well.
Evidence-friendly. Pro Doula certification, internal training library, and a working knowledge of when to defer to a clinician. We treat you as a peer, not a patient.
Non-judgmental. Bottle, breast, scheduled C-section, induction, sleep training — your family, your call. Our job is to help you understand your options, not pick one for you.
