The Life of a Doula

I so often get asked “So, like, what do you do, you know, while you wait for a birth?” Good question, my friend. And one I asked myself multiple times in the early days of my doulaing. In fact, I remember texting my doula after I had become a doula and was on-call and waiting for my client to request me. My text said something like “Oh my goodness, how do you not drive yourself crazy waiting for a call to a birth?!” And I was serious. Here I was, a new doula, anxiously waiting the we’re-ready-for-you call and I couldn’t sit still. I paced, I ate, I channel surfed the 7 channels we had, I obsessively checked my phone, I ate some more, I checked my phone again, nothing. As it should be. Babies come when they are ready. My doula responded with a light-hearted giggle I’m sure, and said “You do you. But do things that are easy to leave. Garden, read, write, coffee/lunch with friends, clean, nap.” All things I love to do anyway, what was my problem?

No problem, just an eagerness and a readiness to be satisfied. I quickly learned that what I do while I wait for a birth is I Do Me. Just as I tell all my clients, “You do you, Boo. Baby will come when baby is ready.” Funny, once I figured out how to follow my own advice, I became much more comfortable with the continuous waiting period of labor.

Labor can have very much a feel of “Hurry up. Wait. Hurry up. Wait.” You get everything set at work to be off for a set amount of time and then you wait. You get the baby’s space all set up and ready and then you wait. You text all the family members “No baby yet. We’ll let you know.” and then everyone waits. You go into labor and then are told to sleep. And by that I mean, you wait. You get to the place of birth and oh wait for it, you wait again. Babies come when babies are ready.

And no one understands that better than a doula. It’s all we do. And we absolutely love it. However, don’t be fooled, we do have lives. It’s not like we sit all serene-like with a never-ending cup of coffee and the best book ever written on a dock by the clearest lake, just calmly waiting. (But doesn’t that sound fantastic?) We have families and other jobs and responsibilities, all that adulting stuff they tell you about in school. But man, when that call comes, when that client who is at so-many-weeks-and-a-few-days who has been ready for that plus some, calls and says “We could really use your support.” it’s like some mysterious force lit a fire inside and to keep that fire alive, we NEED to get to that family.

The life of a doula is a life lived all on it’s own. Until it’s not. And for a small amount of time in this big expansive universe, it is a life that is lived just for that birth and that birth alone.

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