I lost my centre over the past few months and I'm not sure how. I've been feeling like a small boat in the middle of a big sea. The desires and defeats and dreams of others became my reality. I stepped up to a plate I don't really like.
Yesterday, no it's last week now, I ran a half marathon, that's 13 miles. My phone had broken so I didn't have music to listen to, so I only had my own thoughts and the sounds of my feet, my breath, and other runners talking or the Canada Geese honking in the background. I thought about how I have gotten to where I am, and how my beliefs and convictions have changed and matured over time, but how they got mixed up and sidelined over the past year or so.
Women's reproductive health has always been very important to me. I've worked in the field of maternity care for over twenty years, mostly as a doula but also as a midwife. I am not registered to practice as a midwife here in Canada, so I've restricted my practice to other places and different ways of practicing.
As the complications and controversies grew and thrived as we lived through a pandemic, I started to hear from women who did not want to go to the hospital to have their babies, and neither did they want to have their births attended by registered midwives. In their opinion, the restrictions put in place for birthing women and their families were oppressive and inhuman. So these women wanted to give birth on their own.
Most of the women who contacted me felt strongly that they did not want to wear a mask during labour; they did not want their partner or doula to be restricted; they do not believe that the Covid vaccine is necessary or valuable. The vaccine passport in Quebec is now required for a doula to accompany a woman to a hospital or birthing centre, and this is also part of the reasons why this group of women are seeking answers elsewhere.
My life has been devoted to a few things: my own family - my husband, my five sons, and their new families; my attempts to live a good life; and my desire to facilitate change for women, their children, and the world as a whole. For me, that desire became focused on working to find ways to make decent, safe, respectful, woman-centred health care available for every woman.
So when women started calling me and wanting my assistance, advice, and companionship, I agreed that I would provide prenatal support - virtually - and I would accompany them along their decision-making paths to childbirth. You know what? That's insane, and reckless, and lacks consciousness, and that's why I believe that I somehow, somewhere, lost my center. The paradigm doesn't work. Because prenatal care is about touch, and attention, and the five senses, the sixth senses, and all the senses in between. Common sense, for one.
If a woman wants to give birth on her own, for whatever reason, I actually support her in that choice. I don't like to tell people what to do, generally. But I also like to hold people accountable for their actions. And that means that if you're giving birth on your own, then you don't involve me. Why not? Let me explain: I've had many calls from women who want to give birth "outside of the system". And they want me to be a "fly on the wall." Why would they want that fly there? "In case anything goes wrong". Well, the fact is that, in fact, things DO go wrong during childbirth. And if you're giving birth on your own, you should recognize that and figure out what you're going to do in that situation.
But it's not right to rely on the knowledge and experience of a fly, and it's not right for a doula to offer to be that fly. Because then when things do go wrong (which, yes, is very, very rare), then what's a fly supposed to do in an emergency?
