Friends

I was so grateful to a dear friend the other day who offered me an opportunity to try to put things right between us. I had been at fault and I made the opening moves, but she was gracious enough to accept them, conditionally.

When you are working in such an intense field as birth, it is so important to have friends around who understand what you are talking about when you need to discuss how you feel about a birth, or a woman you are working with.

One of the doulas I work with summed it up the other day: she had been present for a family who had a difficult and potentially traumatizing experience. Everything was fine in the end, but during the stress of difficult events, one of the family members took her anxiety out on the doula, who chose to receive it in silence and then process it elsewhere.

She did that successfully, but during the few days we spent talking about it, she told me how strange it was - she had gone out with friends, been with her family, lead her life normally amongst people, but she did not feel that she could discuss what was really bothering her until she spoke to another doula.


Community is so important. Please, reach out to someone you have experienced a break or a rift, or perhaps you have unjustly dealt with in the past. I promise you, we will all be better off for it, and the community itself as a living, breathing entity, will be healthier.

Dear Doula

Dear Doula,

You will need to be strong, because you will be accompanying women at any time of day or night. Sometimes you will have to leave your "private life" for what seems like days at a time.

You will need to be gentle, because sometimes you will be with a woman who needs the most gentle, loving touch of all.

You will need to be firm, because sometimes someone will want something that will not be the right thing, and you will have to be the one to say no.

You will need to be kind, because everyone will not always agree with you and you have to be able to step into their shoes.

You will need to be open, because everyone isn't you, and they all have different ideas, priorities, and make different decisions about their lives.

You will need to be respectful.

You will need to be honest.

You will need to be humble, and you will need to keep on learning.

Sometimes you may have to say you're sorry. Sometimes you may have to admit you were wrong. You cannot work from ego.

It's like being a mother, and just as hard and heartbreaking sometimes, and just as rewarding at others.


You need to know when its time to say goodbye.

Volunteer Birth Companions

I am very happy my book is selling - by the way, people, it would be a very nice Christmas or Hanukah gift for any of your close friends or relatives who are expecting a baby in 2012.

Please visit Amazon to review or "like" my book.

I want to tell you about the Montreal Birth Companions. This is a group of very special women who accompany underprivileged women  during their labor and birth experiences. Most of our doulas are just starting out, but some of them have been working with us for years. They are all volunteers, working out of their own pockets and from the goodness of their hearts to help other women have a joyous birth experience.

One of "my"doulas has been volunteering for months, doing her own research, studying,doing courses with different organizations and waiting for her time to accompany a woman in labor. Finally, yesterday, I got a call from a nurse to tell me that one of their patients who is alone here in Montreal was in labor and wanted a companion.

Our doula rushed to the hospital, where she witnessed a beautiful natural birth and was able to provide comfort and companionship to a birthing woman. She is hoping to be accepted to midwifery school this year, and I hope she gets in. She is a natural!

Buy the Book!

Support Canadian publishers!

Buy The Birth Conspiracy directly  from the publisher, at Curioso Books. You can also log onto Amazon and rate the book.

Launch Success

The Birth Conspiracy is now available for sale either through Amazon or directly from the publisher. 

Support independent Canadian publishers by buying directly from Curioso Books, then if you have a few minutes, please go to Amazon and rate my book....every star counts!

 

I would like to thank everyone who made it out to the book  launch. It was a lot of fun, and I felt honored to have all of you there. It was a different type of book launch - a real family event, with lots of babies and kids, pregnant women, and of course with my own family fully involved (well, some of them anyway).

Pastries by Giacomo

Meet and Greet

Making Friends

Lovely Mother and Babe

Book Launch Tomorrow

It's finally here. My book is written, illustrated, edited, proofed, and printed. It is ready to go, and tomorrow night we will be celebrating.
I hope all of you in Montreal will be able to come and celebrate with us. The launch will take place at 6767 Cote des Neiges, from 7 to 10 pm, and of course children and babies are welcome.

In the meantime, life goes on. I am waiting on a lady who is going to call me any minute now to accompany her during her labor and birth. I have another lady due in a week or so, and I am hoping that baby doesn't decide to arrive tomorrow night.

My mind and dreams are now full of my next book, so watch this space....

And I went to visit my father last week and did the doula in the geriatric ward where he was staying. The doula approach, how we utilize our skills, how we "do the doula", is the same whether we are attending a woman in labor, an old man in hospital, or a teenager having a meltdown. We wait, watch, listen, sympathize, fetch ice, carry water, sit still, put hands on, keep hands off, speak when spoken to, make eye contact.

A hearty thank you and much gratitude to all of those who have allowed me to be present at their births, and to all of the doulas out there who continue to do this challenging work.

Seven Billion!!

I heard today, as many of us did, that the world's population is estimated to have reached 7 billion people!

Let's not speak of low resources, climate change, and gloom and doom, but let's celebrate this 7 billionth baby's birth with a cheer and a toast, to good health, happiness, and longevity for us humans. I'm sure we can find a way to make it all work.

More interesting to me is the likely fact that this baby was probably born at home, with the attendance of a traditionally trained midwife. I do not advocate going back in time to the days when women died in childbirth, but I do believe that home is the best place to conceive and the best place to give birth. I offer a vision of birthing the future from my book:

My vision is one of most women giving birth at home, with full medical back-up available to them if needed. Midwives would provide prenatal care and accompany the laboring women through labor and birth. They would assist with the postpartum period and help the new mother adjust to life with a new baby. If there were problems, the midwives would refer the woman to a doctor, who may in turn refer her to a specialist, an obstetrician. Full emergency support would be in place for the rare occasion that it is needed, so that the midwife would know that she is covered in the case of an emergency. 

The women who chose to give birth in the hospital, in my dream world, would be there because of clear medical or social need. The hospital birthing centers would provide specialized medical care for the few women who need it. Occasionally, there would be a woman who needs the extra emotional support of a doula, but the doula would be well-integrated into the hospital system and would be on call in these situations. Sometimes a woman would want to give birth away from home, and she could go to an independent birthing center which, again, would be fully supported in case of a medical emergency. 

I do not believe that this vision is so far off in the future, or that it is out of our reach. For now, however, our reality is that most women in the developed world are giving birth in hospitals, and many of these hospitals have different philosophies about birth than many of the patients they are there to serve. In Canada, the philosophy of any hospital must be to provide the best care for the greatest number of people. This may translate into an epidural for every woman, especially if there are not enough nurses to support each woman individually. In the USA, hospitals are run as profit-making enterprises, so the word philosophy may not apply. We do know, however, that cesarean section rates are skyrocketing, and that the general consensus is that a national rate of about 15% may be optimum. Personally, I believe that the rate for emergency cesarean sections can be held to 5% without putting the mothers or babies at risk.

The doula is the interface between the birthing community and the medical establishment. This puts us in a difficult position. I have spoken to  women who thought that I would leave them to give birth alone if they decided to take an epidural (this is beyond cruel). I have been yelled at by a physician who thought I had removed an intravenous drip (the nurse hadn’t had time to put it in). I have been looked upon as a knight in shining armor (I don’t even like horseback riding) by women who had not yet understood that the birth work is done by the birthing woman.

     I have also been thanked and cherished by hundreds of women who have been happy to have me by their side as they go through the experience of giving birth. My task, our task as doulas, and in a bigger sense, our task as human beings in the 21^st century, is to “humanize” birth. To me, that means affirming that all of us are different, and that we all have needs, desires, and histories that cannot and should not be judged. My job as a doula is to create a space in which a woman can reclaim her knowledge of birth and give birth according to her own birthright.