On my first day of Stats 316, my prof said that there was a 99% probability of finding two people who shared the same birthday in our class of 57 people. This is known as the "Birthday Paradox". Well, I think I was hit with the doula equivalent today.
I walked to my visit this morning. As I got closer to the couple's house, I thought, "This is really close to where Julie and Trevor lived then they had their baby in 2001." I walked another block, checked the address...and, it was EXACTLY where J&T lived. The same green house on the corner. I know the bathroom where she laboured...the stairs she walked down as she headed to the hospital. Wow! I know this home has good birthing energy.
Read moreI've just ripped open my delivery of new books. I love new books. Shiny, unmarked. I have this crazy habit of wanting to keep the books that way, so I never crack a spine. The only book that is messy and crazy bent is my old edition of "Your Baby and Child" from 1983 that is now in the safe-keeping of my daughter.
So, with the packing dumped on the floor, I curled into my big chair to look at Sarah Buckley's book "Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering". I've been wanting to read this book for a long time. As a lurker on the Maternity Care Discussion Group (MCDG/Matrix) email list, I read Dr. Sarah's posts from Australia and know that I'm going to love whatever she's written. She gets birth. She just gets it.
Read moreWell...it was a busy day. LL's water broke late Monday night (first baby), but there were no contractions immediately. She said that she'd try to sleep and call me in the morning. Only a few hours later, the phone rang. I answered, thinking that the contractions must have started quickly...but it was LF in labour with her third baby. I knew she was going to be quick, so I crossed my fingers and headed off to meet them at the hospital.
This is always a dance for a doula...two clients at once. I knew I had backup at the ready, but I felt pretty sure that I'd be able to make it to both. I just had a feeling... I decided not to panic.
Read moreAfter she had her baby the other day, this new mum said, "You know, once you're in it, labour isn't scary! You just do it!"
I have so many clients who have carried the fear of childbirth with them for years and years. Some even postpone the event for as long as possible, just because their friends (or families) have told such horror stories over the years.
Read moreMan, I do love working with clients for a second (or third or fourth) time!
I get to really connect with the mums, dig deeper into what makes them (and their labours) "tick", and watch the emergence and transformation of a mother.
I love the postpartum visit, where I always manage to have a tea-party (or, in this case be presented with a wooden mixer and a plate of wooden toast, wooden egg, and a special spoon) laid on by a little sparkling one in a tutu, play a song or two, and hold a crying baby.
Read moreI was driving home from visiting clients yesterday, and the CBC radio host was talking to a guest, asking if she lived in Van"cool"ver. It made me laugh, but it also made me think about one of my clients had been talking about her experiences at a Mum's Postpartum Drop-in. The women she had described sounded just a little bit to "cool" for a brand new mum to embrace.
I mean...imagine you're a brand new mum...you've made the first trek out after being trapped in your house by the snow for WEEKS. You've been looking forward to this first drop-in mum's group - "Maybe I'll meet some new friends...and we can go out for coffee...our kids can have fun..." You get your baby tucked into her stroller. You dream about how great it could be as you sweat and grunt and push that stroller through the snow and ice.
Read moreMyth #3297:
"You shouldn't have a home birth because it's too messy!"
One client's mother, a surgeon, was concerned about her daughter's decision to have a home birth because, "I walk around the OR with my boots covered in blood, dear. It would be SUCH a mess!" I asked her if we walk around our houses during our periods with our boots covered in blood. "Well, no," she answered. "That's silly. We wear pads or tampons." After her daughter's home birth, the surgeon Grandma was amazed..."I guess it's the docs that cause the mess!"
Well...labour at home (even when planning a hospital birth) is clean because we are used to keeping clean when we bleed on a monthly basis. Labour is no different. And, for some reason, women seem to lose WAY less blood at home births - a matter of fully functioning hormones, perhaps?
Read moreWhen my daughter and her husband were married, a strand of beads was held in their hands. From a crystal bead that came from Great-great Grandmother Sarah's necklace to a stone from their favourite beach, each token holds a message from those who will support them in their marriage.
Just like birthing beads in Africa, where each woman attended by a midwife adds a bead to the midwife's strand, increasing its power and significance, this strand of beads gains its power from the wishes and love of each person who contributed a bead.
Read moreBirth is never what we expect. Even though we may say we don't have expectations...we do.
So, when I arrive at the hospital around 6am with a client who is 7cm and stretchy to full dilation...there's a part of me that expects her to be happy and nursing her baby by lunchtime. Admit it, Jacquie...after almost 800 births as a doula...you do have certain expectations.
Yes, I must admit, I do have some expectations. But, so do you. If someone told you the birth story later..."she had her beautiful baby girl at dinner time"...you might say, "I expect that she had an epidural (isn't that something that usually slows the labour?)" But, no, she had no epidural, no pain meds at all. Things just slowed down to 1 or 2 contractions every ten minutes for most of the day. She even managed to sleep.
Read moreIt's really odd. Whenever I'm recovering from an illness, all the births come easily and quickly. So, what's with that? In the first couple of weeks after I returned to work after my Uterine Fibroid Embolization, I laughingly said to clients that I could only manage a 6-hour labour. It was a joke! But, they all obliged.
No, I don't really think it's a fluke, because it's happened before. When I was recovering from pneumonia one year, all births in the recovery month were speedy, and I seemed to spend less than 6 hours with each. No kidding! (And, no, it wasn't that I showed up late and left early.)
Read moreWell, well...take a look at the quote above. Picture the scene. Lovely, caring and chatty admitting clerk walks me up to the ward (with my dear husband). Since it's 6:30am, there are no nurses to be found. A nurse comes out of a room and wanders down the hall (was she sleeping in there, I wonder?)
The clerk says, "I have a new patient for you," and the nurse replies, without looking at me..."Oh, is this the fibroid?"
The clerk pointedly answers, "Her name is Jacqueline Munro, and she's here to have an embolization this morning."
Read moreIf you’re having a hospital birth, perhaps one of the most challenging parts of labour is the transition from your home to the hospital. Many couples worry about the car ride to the hospital, but it’s amazing to see how most women manage the ride with surprising grace. If the car ride is timed so that it coincides with the trance induced by high levels of endorphins (well past the mid-point of labour), then the whole journey can be manageable.
To illustrate - I vividly remember one client’s ride to BC Women’s from UBC. It was around 4am. She threw a coat over her naked body, somehow managed to run to her car down a long apartment hallway (between contractions), then crawl onto the back seat of her minivan, exposing her bottom to an old man in a trilby hat, who was coincidently walking his little Scotty dog past us at that moment (you should have seen his face!) Bouncing along in the car, this normally private woman laughed and laughed. “That was FUN!” Yes, the trip was uncomfortable, with her husband trying to negotiate hundreds of potholes, but the absurd nature of the trip far outweighed the pain it may have caused.
Read moresearching for information for the ongoing debate with her husband? Even though it is the woman who must ultimately make the decision about her birth setting, it is imperative that her partner is included in the process of informed choice, and comes to understand and support her decision, without fear.
Since I'm known as the research-oriented and pragmatic doula, I'd better throw in some evidence. So, here are a few things I want you to consider:
Read moreI always encourage clients to send me a blog post after their birth. Here's a post that I asked dear Kate to write after she told me about one day in her "life as a new mum". I'll be writing more about her amazing home birth (and the string of amazing home births I've attended) recently....as soon as I've had some sleep...
"This is for all the women who are doing very well... you know the kind - maybe you are one. One whose families are wondering, why does she keep calling her doula every two days? Surely a doula is just necessary for the labour part. Maybe even your husband, who was over the moon at having a doula present at birth, is a little skeptical:
Read moreOkay, so I've officially decided that the full moon really MUST make babies come in groups!
In the past week there have been so many babies, with their due dates randomly spaced over a six week period. Thankfully, there were no overlaps. Well, there was one 8-minute gap between two clients (it took me 8 minutes to run down the hill from one completed birth at St Paul's hospital to the next client's house on Pacific!)
So, there were two undisturbed home births, two undisturbed hospital births, and two challenging births caused by sweet posterior babies (resulting in one cesarean and one vaginal birth). The largest baby (9lb 13oz) and the smallest baby (6lb 12oz) this week were both born vaginally with no meds. What a ride!
Read moreCheck out the MedWire News synopsis of a new study that was recently published in the journal Birth (2008: 35: 92-7)
Doula support reduces cesarean and epidural rates
by Lucy Piper 03 June 2008
Examining the perinatal effects of doula support for nulliparous middle-income women accompanied by a male partner during labor and delivery.
MedWire News: The continued presence of a doula during labor significantly reduces cesarean delivery rates and the need for epidural analgesia in middle- and upper-class U.S. women accompanied by their male partner or another family member, researchers report.
Read moreI think there’s a purpose behind the nine long months of pregnancy. This time is vital for introspection, reflection, setting boundaries, and discovery. As I’ve said so many times before, birth is not a “body” act...it’s an act of the soul and the mind and the will.
Yes, I have a checklist of the things that I need to discuss with clients...and worksheets for them to fill out if they’re “paper people”. But, in order to serve my clients well, I need to go further, deeper. So, over the months, we talk on the phone discussing everything from diapers to spirituality. I often ask couples some unusual questions to help them uncover how their life experiences may affect them during the birth and postpartum. Usually, the deeper we go, the greater the understanding, resulting in a much more positive emotional experience for everyone.
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