What Do You See?

What do you see, doula, what do see;
What do you see when you look at me?
Am I a mother who's knowledgeable and wise;
Strong and capable at birth in your eyes?
I shower, I lunge and I rock on the ball;
My husband and I go for walks down the hall.
I trust my instincts to squat and to stand;
You show your support by squeezing my hand.

The lights are dimmed, the music turned on;
The concept of time has come and gone.
I release my fear when the surge rides high;
I blow out my breath on a mighty sigh.

The pressure overwhelms, the urge is strong;
You smile at me and say, "It won't be long!"
Suddenly there is a hive of activity;
Bright lights, loud voices - the commontion scares me.

My husband holds my hand, you whisper in my ear;
"Listen to your body, there's nothing to fear.
"I breathe my baby down, slowly blowing out;
The burning is so outrageous that I have to shout!

I feel my baby crowning, my journey almost complete;
I see a head, shoulders, legs and finally - tiny feet!
A wet warm baby is placed gently on my chest;
After all, I had read that skin-to-skin was best.

I stroke that velvet skin and cry silent tears of joy;
My baby...My baby...My beautiful baby boy!
I turn to you with my heart on my sleeve;
"You did the work," you said, "all I did was believe."

I wrote this poem in 2010...so what do I see? Strong, capable, smart women - loving, gentle, encouraging families. This job resonates within my soul...I truly love what I do.

The Birth Story

This is probably the most challenging aspect of being a doula.  Some doulas write them, others don’t.  I always have but finding the delicate balance of writing my observations without taking over the story can be incredibly difficult.  I witness the actions, the environment and the timing but I’m not the one experiencing the story first hand. 

Truth be told, writing is not my forte and I struggle immensely sometimes to find the right words, the right flow and the right pace.  Birth has a lot of stops and starts, often extremely slow in the beginning and then winding up to a crazy finish.  How to document all that, especially if a birth is particularly long, grueling or negative?

I have tried to find the positive in all births, moments where moms are particularly strong—either in their determination or when faced with difficult decisions; the comedy—like when I slammed the back rest of the car seat into a mother’s face giving her a bloody nose in the midst of 2 minute apart contractions; but sometimes I have to relive the trauma and find the light of the situation.  I can only write what I see—and often times I wonder if I wrote what the mother felt.

Those stories are slices of time in a couple’s life—a time when most families are working together and working at their best.  I see parents united through some pretty intense moments, overwhelming choices and bear witness to their hopes and dreams.  Ultimately though, I am only an observer and some of those stories take me an awful long time to write.  I’m long-winded, you see—what normally can be told in a few words, takes me a paragraph.  I stop and start…I agonize…I finagle...I laugh…I weep, and I try desperately not to write my own emotions into it.  It’s not about me, it’s about the amazing journey two people took to bring forth new life into the world, but damn it’s so very hard to get right!  I worry that my client’s saw their births completely different than I did; perspective and perception of situations are a delicate line to walk.  I worry I got it wrong.  I worry…period.  I am documenting an intricate part of this couple’s, this woman’s, life—the birth of a child.

There are stories that take me days to write; I literally have to walk through the minefields of time, action and emotion and there are others that I can pound out in mere minutes.  I’ve often been asked if I have a “formula” when I write them—sorry, not Danielle Steele or Nora Roberts here!  Each story has the same first and last paragraphs…all the pages in between come from my heart.

I have danced with the idea of not writing them at all, but many of my previous clients tell me they cherish those stories.  I’ve actually been hired just for the stories and not because of my skill as a doula—I’m not sure what I really think about that to be honest.  I offer so much more than the story; or at least I like to tell myself that.

If I wrote yours, I hope I got it right…