Something that I learned as a newly pregnant mother 13 years ago was that no matter what I chose to do during my pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and parenting period, someone, somewhere was going to have something to say about it. I have always been a bit unconventional; from the start, I knew that I was going to birth my baby my way, and I had no intention of setting foot in a hospital if I could help it. In fact, I was rather opinionated about how birth should go, even though I had never experienced it myself. I was young, inexperienced, and a bit naive. Fast forward to 24 hours in labor, and if an epidural had been available in the freestanding birth center where I was delivering my daughter, I definitely would have been yelling for someone to get me an epidural — now. Looking back on my labor with my first child, I wished for different choices and a different outcome. An outcome that included less back labor and less of me crying and feeling completely helpless. I wished I felt more empowered.
When I was delivering my second child in the same birth center, my labor was much more manageable and I felt more powerful and capable, but I was still rather uneducated on the choices that I could have made. When the midwife on staff told me that I needed to deliver on my back, I just did as she said, not knowing that the delivery was actually made more difficult due to that position. A nearly 9-pound baby and a gnarly tear later, I was left wishing that things could have gone differently than they had, but not really knowing what I could have done to change things if I could back and do it over again.
Telling my birth stories to people around me sometimes left a funny taste in my mouth — feeling like some people disapproved of my choices. “You chose an out-of-hospital birth? I could never do that!” “If you had just gotten an epidural or an episiotomy maybe you wouldn’t feel so dissatisfied with how your babies were born.” There were endless opinions on the decisions that I made during my births. And others’ opinions on what is “best” to do during birth are just as numerous as the decisions have to be made. It can be overwhelming hearing the “two cents” of friends, neighbors, family members, co-workers, and acquaintances.
That’s where my job as a doula comes in. I get to be the unbiased person who comes in and listens to you, hearing just what you want as the person who is giving birth. You, after all, are the one who has to live with the choices that you’ve made — and therefore, you should be the one whose opinion matters the most. To have a person who is 100% on board with your birthing plan, and not going to judge you for it or question you on it, is extremely empowering and comforting when you’re in the midst of that season of life where everyone wants to tell you how they gave birth/fed their baby/parented their baby and why you should do it that way too.
As a doula, I want to support you no matter what your birth plan is, be it a home birth, water birth, hospital birth, epidural, induction, or planned cesarean — I want to help you have the most beautiful birth possible. Part of my job as a doula is to help educate, if that is what you want me to do. My pre-birth appointments with my clients include conversations about the different factors involved in birth: what you desire to do for pain management, the location where you will be birthing, who your support persons will be, what positions you want to try pushing in, and how you will decide to feed your baby, and what would you prefer to happen if things don’t go according to plan. If you want more information on a specific topic, like skin-to-skin, breastfeeding, or using nitrous for pain relief, I am more than happy to do some of the legwork for you and lessen the load of emotional labor and decision making that is required during the pregnancy and birth process.
As a birth doula, my job is never to make the decision for you — but I can help you discover what your options are. Once you come to a decision on what you want, it’s my biggest desire to support you the whole way there. I love helping women discover what their options are for birth. It is so confidence-building to create a birth plan for yourself and know that whatever happens, you have choices along the way. I love to point out the choices that you have during labor, even as things may change and shift during the process. If there’s anything I’ve learned as a mother and birth doula, it’s that plans can change on a dime, and sometimes what felt right to you during pregnancy is no longer going to feel right to you once you’re in labor — and that’s okay. Part of my skillset as a birth doula is to be able to pivot and support you in whatever you’re choosing, and sometimes changing your mind is part of that process! I love to see the relief and comfort that comes over a laboring mother’s face when she tells me what she wants, and I respond with “Whatever you want, I support your choice 100%”.
I love that there are more and more choices being afforded to mothers in the Pacific Northwest. Education on our choices has created an environment in which women are empowered to have safe, enjoyable, beautiful births to remember. We should appreciate and acknowledge that we have more choices in childbirth than those that women were afforded in yesteryear. Let us celebrate the choices we are given in birth and make them confidently — and let us celebrate and support the choices that other women make, knowing that they are making the decision that feels best and right for them and their families. Judgment should never be a part of that process. My goal is to support you throughout your birth; whether you choose to birth in the living room of your home, have a water birth in the hospital, schedule a planned cesarean, or use all the pain management available during your induction — I’ll be there for you, rooting you on the entire time.
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