why do i need a doula

we’ve had three kids and doulas with each–why we’d do it again that way

October 30, 2014

Doula doula whata? That was me, five months pregnant with SuperBoy. My childhood girlfriend (Hi, Andrea!) happened to hang out with me and catch up after a few years apart and mentioned a mutual childhood friend (Hi, Emily!) was a doula. Oh. That’s nice. A what? Her description sealed the deal for me: “a woman who helps you through labor.” Sealed as in, no thanks. I got this. My husband is smart and very sweet. He’s got this. We will just roll on into the hospital and have this baby, just like in the movies. Why would I want an old friend there? That’s just weird. It wasn’t until a little later in pregnancy that we chatted with other friends who had . . . wait for it . . . done Bradley Method classes and wait again . . . a midwife! I was again, so surprised and confident that we didn’t need methods or classes. We were signed up for the hospital classes. They’d tell us everything, right? Wrong again. Fast forward. Doulas at every birth. Bradley Method self-taught. Huge pushers of the Bradley Book and the Big Book of Birth. We’re like evangelizers for natural childbirth. Natural as in, no interventions or only as needed. Woe to those pregnant friends who were lured to our house for dinner. They always leave with a few books, a few enthusiastic chats about vaginas and cervixes and doulas. Poor friends. I wrote about our changing perspective and conversion on this…

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Dads for Doulas

April 1, 2011

J sports his “Team Emily” shirt I made him. My husband was a skeptic initially about the whole “doula” idea. In hindsight, he found Emily Rumsey, our doula, to be pivotal in having a secure, positive birthing experience. A doula helps through pregnancy with the preparation of a birth plan, offers home remedy suggestions for nausea and other delightful discomforts, and acts as an additional sounding board to your health care professional. And even for the parents who aren’t strident about an all-natural birth, having a doula there helps both parents, especially the one who is not in labor. Doulas provide experience, comfort, encouragement, and support for the non-laboring parent as well as the one sweating. Our doula even offered to fetch us pizza from a local Italian shop after the baby was born. I was ravenous. It was delicious! AA firmly believes all dads need doulas. Labor is an unpredictable and unnerving experience for the first-time parent. Someone present throughout the entirety of it who has gone through it before is a must. And as your nurse is not there the entire time, nor is the doc/midwife necessarily, the doula provides extra hands, and experienced eyes to direct and ease you through your labor.

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