Three Rivers Birth Services

(edited a couple of these out that didn’t fit my personal philosophy…and added a couple about my own family!)

YOU KNOW YOU’RE A DOULA WHEN…

You watch birth on TV shows and can’t help but talk to the television the entire time.

Your kids ask to sit on your lap so you can watch births on YouTube together.

When someone mentions they are in an “LDR”, you first think of “Labor and Delivery Room”, not a “long distance relationship”.

You rejoice at the following – swearing, vomiting, pooping on the bed, nausea, gas, belching – and think “Cool! We’re getting close!”

You can see a woman vomit, urinate, defecate, or undergo major surgery without missing a beat.

You check on your kids in the middle of the night and your three year old mumbles “Did her water break?”

Your kids tell their friends, “Mommy had another baby and was up all night”.

Your children think all pregnant ladies know you.

Your 5-year-old is your best marketer…telling all pregnant family and friends, “did you know my mommy is a doula?”

Your children know more about birth than most women who have given birth to 3 babies.

Your son is learning grammar and can’t figure out why the teacher keeps talking about contractions.

Your 16-year-old takes a child development class in high school and knows more than the teacher about birth, breastfeeding, and parenting.

Your normally unpolitical husband has secretly become a breastfeeding advocate, commenting on news stories online to clear up public breastfeeding misconceptions.

You unconsciously think a “labor pool” is a water-filled tub for a woman to be in while having a baby, not a group of workers.

Your child wakes you up in the middle of the night and you mumble, “How far apart are they?”

You live for the times someone says, “A doula? What’s that?”

At the gym or in yoga class, you accidentally ask for a birth ball.

You and your family think it’s totally normal to discuss episiotomies over dinner… you explain what a placenta looked like over spaghetti… heck you even discuss placental abruptions and calcifications over roast beef.

You’ve touched more breasts than you care to admit in mixed company.

You have more pictures and videos containing naked women in your home than the porno shop downtown.

On a hunch, you pack and repack your birth bag 3 times, check the on/off switch on your cell phone 5 times, and go to bed with your clothes on……and you get called three hours later.

Your spouse knows to ask three questions: “Are you in labor? Is this an emergency? Do you want her cell phone number?”

You hubby asks if it was a girl or a boy and rolls over and goes back to sleep.

The guy at the photo shop passes out while developing your film.

Your client is nearing her due date and you become fascinated by what she sees when she wipes and how soft her bowel movements are.

You see a metal mixing bowl in a store and think of placentas or vomit.

Everyone else in the room is yelling, “hold your breath, chin down, no noise, 1, 2, 3, pushhhhhhhhh harder,” and you are the only one in the room whispering in the mom’s ear “listen to your body, you are doing such a great
job, look down, push your baby out, just like that, you are sooooooooo awesome!”

PROM doesn’t make you think of high school.

Your 5 year old tells another child: “No your baby brother isn’t growing in your mommy’s tummy. He is in her uterus. Mommies don’t eat the babies!”

You overhear your husband explaining to another man how to watch a woman’s behavior for dilation during labor.

Your 5-year-old son wants to be an OB because what mommy does is so cool, but he’s convinced that doulas have to be girls.

At a playdate at your house, you hear your three-year-old explain birth to her friends – “and then she gets in the bathtub, and the baby comes right out of her vagina!” and you hope their parents have had “the talk” already.

You overhear your husband talking over beers with the guys about the growing c-section rates and the inaccessibility of VBAC.

The number of birth books on your shelf outnumbers the number of shoes and socks you own!

**

*And my personal favorite…*

You’re so exhausted you could weep, you haven’t gone pee for 9 hours even
though your bladder’s bursting, you’ve just wiped poop from someone’s
backside, you have flecks of blood and vomit on your shoes, but there is
still no place in the world you’d rather be!

The evidence is quite clear that upright positions for birth delivers quicker births and less cesareans. In Ecuador, they are taking this knowledge to heart:

“As part of a national effort to lower infant and maternal mortality in Ecuador, one hospital runs a “vertical maternity ward” with upright deliveries and the services of traditional midwives. Amid growing popularity, other hospitals are following suit.”

The rest of the very interesting article can be found here:

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3920/context/cover/

Juji

Invitation to Birthing From Within Mothers
With thanks to Oriah Mountain Dreamer for inspiration

It doesn’t interest me how many prenatal books you’ve read,
I want to know if you hear your child whisper to you
when you lie awake at night.

It doesn’t interest me who you are
or where you came from,
I want to know if your authentic mother warrior will awaken
when you birth your baby with all that you have.

It doesn’t interest me if you have a birth plan
or where you plan to give birth.
I want to know that you will meet your birth
with an open mind and open heart.
I want to know if you can fully embrace the path
you must journey
to birth yourself as a mother.

It doesn’t interest me if you birth in silence
or as a lioness roars.
I want to know if you are willing to do
whatever it takes to birth your baby,
regardless of how you look,
how you sound,
or what others may think.
I want to know if you are willing to journey
to your depths and through the unknown.

It doesn’t interest me how many stitches you get,
I want to know how you are moving in your body.
I want to know if you can take each movement
of your achy dripping body
and know that it has done a marvelous, miraculous thing.

It doesn’t matter to me how you feed your baby.
I want to know if you are willing
to nurture your baby
from the depths of your soul and with
unconditional love.

I want to know if in the dark of night,
you can raise your tired bones and weary spirit
and do what needs to be done to care for your children

I want to know if you are willing to give up
your judges and ideals of a perfect parent
and surrender to your heart
and belly
to love your baby until you ache.

—–
This work was compiled and edited by Juji Woodring with contributions from Alejandrina in AZ, Lia from South Africa, Alisa from Texas, Charlene, and Tamara D.

Several years back when I was freshly out of college and not yet a mother, I remember going out to a work luncheon and a woman began breastfeeding her infant as I was talking to her.  Stunned (but I’m happy to report at least I wasn’t grossed out), I could hardly finish my sentence.

Luckily, I’ve learned a lot about breastfeeding since then…and my own little ones were my teachers.

I learned, the hard way, that newborns need to eat at least every two hours (so the books say), but often in those first few weeks it’s more.  That it takes quite a while just to get into the car when you are about to go somewhere when you have a newborn and all the gear that goes with one.  And that finally when you, the tired new mommy, have finally made it to the mall or the restaurant or whatever, when you’ve only been there for 30 minutes, your newborn gets hungry.  And that newborns are not easily distracted and have very definite opinions about such things.

I have learned that public restrooms, for some women, just don’t feel like sanitary enough place for feeding a baby (I mean, would YOU eat in there?).  And that bottles can sometimes interfere with breastfeeding (my first had nipple confusion) and that some babies refuse a bottle altogether (my second never took one – we weaned to the cup when it was time).   That it is pretty easy to use a blanket to cover yourself when breastfeeding.  And that some picky babies (yep, my second one again), refuse, quite loudly, to be covered with a blanket while breastfeeding.  And finally, that when your shirt is pulled down to the baby’s cheek, your breast will not be exposed and almost no one will even notice that you are breastfeeding in public.

Many people underestimate what the public breastfeeding stigma’s legacy is on babies and families.  Not feeling like it is okay to breastfeed in public keeps some new mommies from leaving the house for the first several months while their baby is eating very often.  Feeling housebound doesn’t help chances of postpartum depression.  That ripple of depression impacts not only the mother, but her partner, any other kids in the house, extended family, friends, and worse yet – that newborn she’s trying so hard for.

So the next time you see a woman breastfeeding in public, give her a smile, or even strike up a conversation with her.

This is in honor of the Washington State bill being presented to the state house of representatives today:

House Bill 1596, Protecting a Woman’s Right to Breastfeed in a Place of Public Resort, Accommodation, Assemblage or Usage.
February 3, 1:30, Olympia, Public Hearing in the House Committee on State Government and Tribal Affairs.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1596&year=2009