Today we’d like to introduce you to Lindsay Dougless.
Hi Lindsay , it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My name is Lindsay Dougless, and my business partner, Courtney Diggs, and I own The Starting Place Birth and Wellness Center.
My journey into women’s health really started long before I became a nurse. I think, in many ways, I was drawn to this work before I even understood what it meant.
I began my career as a Labor and Delivery RN, and while I loved caring for women and their babies, I quickly realized there was something missing in the way care was often being provided. I wanted more time with each patient. I wanted to provide meaningful education, build relationships, establish trust, and make sure women truly understood their options so they could make informed decisions about their care.
The reality of the hospital environment, especially when we were understaffed, often made that difficult. Interactions could become more about checking boxes than truly connecting with the person in front of you.
There was one particular experience that really changed the direction of my career. I witnessed a patient advocate for herself and express that she did not want a particular procedure. The provider told her that she was not allowed to decline it. Watching that interaction was a turning point for me. I knew I wanted to practice differently. I wanted to be the kind of provider who listened, respected autonomy, educated rather than pressured, and advocated alongside women.
As an RN most people would make the obvious choice to attend CNM school, but I realized I was being pulled toward out-of-hospital birth. If I was going to practice outside of the hospital, I wanted to be trained specifically for that setting. That led me to become a Certified Professional Midwife and Licensed Midwife.
Around that time, I met Brooke Fox while working at the same hospital. She was finishing her CNM training and had a beautiful perspective on women’s health. She was also stepping into ownership of The Starting Place, and she invited me to come alongside her and help build the practice.
The Starting Place already had a beautiful history as a midwifery practice and was closely connected to the nonprofit Heartline Haiti, which remains very near and dear to our hearts. Brooke and I shared a vision for building bridges between out-of-hospital birth and the hospital system. We believe there is a time and place for both, and that women deserve excellent care regardless of where they ultimately choose to give birth.
One of our goals became creating strong relationships with the surrounding hospitals so that we could better support all populations of expecting women and make transitions between settings as seamless as possible.
Brooke was an incredible leader at The Starting Place for three years. Recently, she felt called to take her passion back into the hospital setting, where she hopes to help create an environment where patients feel heard and respected. We are incredibly proud of her for following that calling.
Today, Courtney and I are carrying that mission forward together. Courtney is also a Certified Professional Midwife and has spent years training in the out-of-hospital setting with various midwives throughout Central Texas. She has one of the biggest hearts for serving women that I have ever encountered. She has an incredible gift for loving people, advocating for them, and making them feel seen.
At the heart of The Starting Place, our goal is simple: to see women for who they are, listen to what they want, educate them about their options, and walk alongside them in their decisions. We want every woman who comes through our doors to feel respected, supported, informed, and genuinely cared for.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Choosing to become an out-of-hospital midwife is anything but easy. There are a million different obstacles you can face along the way. First, accessing comprehensive training in this field can be challenging. It takes thorough, well-rounded education and hands-on experience to train safe, competent midwives, and those opportunities can be difficult to find.
There are also the social stigmas surrounding the profession, misconceptions about the safety of out-of-hospital birth, and at times, pushback from larger hospital systems. The road can feel difficult, sometimes, it seems that the fact that women have a choice in where and how they receive care gets lost.
I truly believe there is a time and place for both out-of-hospital and hospital-based care. These models don’t have to work against each other. We have an opportunity to work together—to make maternity care more accessible, create seamless transitions when a higher level of care is needed, and, most importantly, continue to see and care for the individual woman behind the pregnancy.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The Starting Place exists to provide compassionate, relationship-centered maternity and wellness care that empowers women through education, informed decision-making, and genuine advocacy. We believe every woman deserves to be heard, respected, and actively involved in her care. Through collaboration with families, midwives, physicians, and hospitals, we strive to bridge the gap between out-of-hospital and hospital care and create a more accessible, seamless, and supportive experience for every family we serve.
Our goal is to transform the experience of maternity care by creating a community where women feel known, supported, educated, and empowered throughout their journey. We seek to build lasting relationships across the healthcare system, promote collaboration between models of care, and ensure that every woman has access to safe, individualized care that honors her choices and values.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I believe one of the most important qualities to our success is trying to glorify Jesus in everything we do. The Starting Place would not be what it is without His hand on it. We are also intentional about choosing the right people to work alongside us. In a practice like The Starting Place, clinical knowledge and skill are incredibly important, but the heart behind the care matters just as much.
We have a team of people who genuinely love women, care about their voices, and believe that every woman deserves to be heard, respected, educated, and supported in her decisions. We look for people who are compassionate, trustworthy, humble, willing to learn, and committed to providing excellent care.
For us, success is about building a team that shares the same values and mission, and knowing that everyone on your team has different strengths and we should lean into that. We want people who will advocate for women, care deeply about the families we serve, support one another, and be willing to collaborate rather than compete.
I also believe that staying curious and being willing to grow is essential. Healthcare is constantly changing, and we should never stop learning or looking for ways to improve. When you surround yourself with people who are passionate, teachable, and committed to the same vision, you create something much stronger than any one person could build alone.
Ultimately, the right people make the mission possible. When you have a team that truly believes in women, believes in their choices, and genuinely wants to serve them well, that becomes the foundation for everything else we do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thestartingplace.com
- Instagram: midwivesatthestartingplace
