Awesome Moms of Huntsville: Tracy Abney
Arguably, childbirth and the days and months following can be some of the most challenging and vulnerable in one’s life. Fortunately, it can also be a beautiful time of support and love for the growing family. Tracy Abney plays a huge role in ensuring that Huntsville families receive all the love and support they need during the hectic postpartum months. The owner of Rocket City Doulas, Tracy and her team of labor and postpartum doulas are dedicated to being a helping hand and a shoulder to cry on for families in North Alabama. Read below to meet Tracy and see why we think she’s an Awesome Mom of Huntsville!
Tracy’s Passion
It feels weird to say, but I’ve always had a gift of helping those going through major life transitions to never feel like they’re in it alone. I love the idea of helping people reduce anxiety and instill confidence in their own personal decisions. Whether that’s pregnancy and birth, the postpartum period, or pregnancy and infant loss. (Or parenting!) I’ve been a doula in our community for 14 years, trying to meet that goal as a solo doula, and now as owner of Rocket City Doulas.
As a doula agency owner, I love being able to pour into our agency doulas as a mentor. I love sharing experiences, sharing client stories, and having a space for us to dig into the hard stuff together.
As the owner of Rocket City Doulas, Tracy not only supports new parents, but her fellow doulas in the area.
Her Motherhood Journey (So far!)
My journey as a mom was/has been chaotic, and messy, but full of so many beautiful moments. It started with a pregnancy after being told we may struggle with infertility, a surprise pregnancy and birth. It continued with the loss of 6 pregnancies, infertility, a pregnancy riddled with anxiety, postpartum anxiety, general anxiety disorder in children, therapy, speech therapy, elementary school, bullying, sports and more sports, and so much more.
We’re about to send our oldest to college in August (2023). It has somehow gone by quicker than I ever imagined. My older two kids are just barely over two years apart in age. I used to get so annoyed when people would make comments about how quickly they would grow up, because it felt like we were in little people world for so long.
Our children are almost 18, 16, 13, and 11. We’ve somehow crossed over from “lots of little people” to the “your kids are so big” stage.
Tracy operates her business out of her home office in her bedroom, she’s learned through experience the importance of setting boundaries for her time.
Her Quest for Balance
Balancing the work/home/life balance feels extra hard to create when you own your own business and your office is literally in your bedroom. The last few years, though, I’ve added a few firm boundries:
- I only schedule phone calls for work during certain times of the day. I do not schedule a call outside of those hours unless it is an emergency. (I don’t answer the phone to unknown numbers for the same reason.)
- I do not personally create or attend meetings on the weekends. (With older kids comes all day events on the weeknights and weekends.)
- I create plans and systems to help eliminate the amount of emergencies if at all possible. If they can be solved preemptively, it’s less stress.
- I weigh things I say yes to against if it’s worth my time away from my family, and not just in dollars or financial return of investment.
- Specific to doula work- I will never do solo call again. All of our doulas share call, and if I’m working with a client, that means I do, too. It allows for time to be with my family, to center myself, and to not burn out. Which extends the amount of time I can work in this field AND it’s better for our clients to have well rested (mentally and physically) doulas.
I do not have this perfected, but it’s definitely something I’m getting better at with practice!
Her Ideal Rocket City Weekend
LOTS and lots of food would be on my list! We have so many places we want to try. We’d grab breakfast somewhere new, maybe head out for a hike on the mountain, and grab dinner at one of our favorite places. (Our family LOVES Phucket in Providence, and if I am picking, that’s what it would be.) We love the Stovehouse in the warmer months, especially when they have live music.
Funniest Parenting Moment
We went out west for spring break in 2018. Our oldest was 13 and is really more of a self-proclaimed “indoorsy” person. We spent a large majority of that trip hiking at national parks.
One hike, at the Grand Canyon, she refused to wear closed toe shoes, and insisted on wearing her Chacos. There was still snow and ice on the ground. (This particular trail we hiked also had lots of donkey poop.) Instead of saying “you know what, mom and dad, I messed up. I should’ve worn different shoes like you said” she dug her figurative Chaco heels into that ground and decided those shoes were the best shoes ever for this hike.
As you can imagine, she was slipping and sliding everywhere, and multiple times stepped right into that donkey poop.
She wasn’t exactly what you’d call a good sport about it either. She complained the ENTIRE 2 hour hike. It was too cold, too steep, too long, too stupid, this view isn’t even that good, she has the worst parents, who even LIKES hiking anyway?
Fast forward two days, and our family is on a shuttle bus from the rental car return to the airport. An older woman was sitting next to our child, asking her about our trip. The woman says to our child “What was your favorite part of the entire trip?”
Our daughter answers THE DONKEY POOP HIKE- The hike where she complained for 2 hours straight. My husband and I just looked at each other and burst out laughing. It was the epitome of parenting an early teen.
Tracy’s Top Parenting Tip
I wish I would’ve learned this earlier on in my parenting journey, but it would be to let the little stuff go. My personal parenting goal isn’t to control my children’s actions and behaviors, but to hopefully connect to their hearts.
The Super Power She Wishes She Had
I’m making up a super power, but for my work I’d love to have the super power of knowing exactly when someone will have their baby- date, time, & place. Thank-you-very-much. lol
Tracey’s Parenting Book Recommendation
Recently it’s been Brene Brown. Her book on leadership wasn’t only great for my business, but for parenting, too!
Her Playlist
Name the song you think of when you need to:
Get your Gameface on – Late 90’s early 2000’s hiphop/rap- a little bit of Nelly, Diddy, maybe some Ludacris, etc.
Recover from heartbreak – I usually still listen to my “gameface” music. But if I want to cry, I might put on some Noah Cyrus.
Energize yourself – Stacey’s mom- it’s nostalgic (I hated it, but kids in high school used to sing it as “Tracy’s mom”.) and I know all of the words!
Let loose and have fun with your friends – Right now it’s Pretty Girls Walk.
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