B’s Story…
This week is World Doula Week, and this really captures why I love what I do and why I became a doula and mom support coach. I love supporting women and helping them grow into such amazing mothers and women!
**Please Note: this client has allowed me to share this however it has been edited to remove any names or identifying information.
“Dear Mandie,
I saw your post about world doula week and I’ve been wanting to send you this for awhile and this felt like the right time. First off, happy world doula week, I am so so grateful for you and all that you do! Doulas are incredible people. I also wrote this shortly after our daughter’s birth so it might be rambly and emotional but it’s all true.
I need you to know just how much your support with my second baby means to me.
I’ll never forget my first birth, my husband and I didn’t know better and to be honest we didn’t really put any effort into preparing. We just didn’t understand the value or importance. Of course, we can say this AFTER the fact, but at the time we thought that because we were blindly following our doctor, all was okay. My husband said he was “reading some books” and “learning” how to support me, we took some free classes, but I’ll be honest, my husband and I both figured out really quick that we wasted a lot of time reading the wrong books, the free classes we took were a joke, and were completely ignorant.
When labor began, my husband panicked. He even admits that he had no idea what to do and seeing me in labor just made him freak out. He kept feeling like the baby was going to be born any second and was so anxious. He just wanted to be at the hospital and did not know what to do to support me during contractions. My husband kept pushing and pushing to go to the hospital and to make him feel better, we went. His anxiety was just making me so stressed so I was hoping that going to the hospital early would be the solution. That was a joke.
The hospital was just too much. Tons of staff, wanting to check my cervix all the time, always fixing the monitor on my belly to find baby, telling me what I could and couldn’t do, and no one was listening to me. I went in saying I didn’t want medications and just kept getting dismissed. My husband had no clue how to help me stick up for myself and my birth plan. The whole thing was a mess and I felt so disrespected.
Needless to say we fell victim to the “cascade of interventions”. I wasn’t “progressing fast enough” (according to my doctor) so first came pitocin and then the contractions were awful so I had to get an epidural, and then sure enough we found ourselves having our child extracted from my body in this hasten panic. This was never the way I imagined my child being born.
The whole situation was traumatic to say the least. To top it off, breastfeeding fizzled out within weeks. I had no idea what to do, my son’s pediatrician just kept pushing formula, and I didn’t even know there were actual professions who were educated in breastfeeding. I felt like everything that could go wrong, was. I felt like a failure. I dreaded having another child. My husband and I wanted lots of kids and after our son we both were very hesitant. And that hurt both of us too. I was so frustrated, angry, and hurt about my son’s birth experience and what sucked the most was I had this idea that birth and breastfeeding was supposed to be amazing and I just wanted that! I didn’t want to feel angry and frustrated with how everything all ended up. It didn’t help that people kept spouting “at least you’re alive and your child is healthy” and “fed is best” over and over like my wishes and goals didn’t matter.
When my husband and I decided we were finally open to having a second kid, I did a lot of research and I came across you. I won’t stop raving about you, but just so you know, you are the biggest blessing in our lives. My husband was so skeptical at the beginning, he didn’t understand how you could help, especially over a screen. But, he was at least open to my desire to take a completely different approach with this second child. Meeting with you before we conceived was the best decision I have made since marrying my husband. I am really thankful that you encouraged us to seek help to process our son’s birth and worked with us to get into a place where we were excited about another baby again.
Mandie, you are so smart and know so much and I love that you took the time to get to know my husband and I. My husband was quick to realize your value after your one-on-ones with him. I’m thankful you guided and supported us in finding a provider that respected us and was sensitive to our first birth experience. Our work together during pregnancy was such a game changer. It was so relieving to feel such confidence about labor. I actually was feeling impatient because I felt so ready. These were feelings I didn’t know I could have. I know these feelings came after a lot of work with you and our therapist, but they existed and I experienced them and I don’t know how to fully express how great that all felt.
My husband said that he was not panicked at all and said that the two biggest things that helped him was your prep work during pregnancy and knowing that he could call you anytime during labor for support. He said just knowing that you were a phone call away was actually calming and I have to agree with him!
I got my transformative magical birth like I wanted (and needed). I’m glad I did the work and I’m thankful for your encouragement and support. I’m also really glad that fate brought us together because I truly feel you were the missing piece we didn’t know we needed. Your knowledge and expertise, your encouragement and coaching, just all of your support in guiding us to prepare differently this time around really made all the difference. I felt so prepared and educated on everything this pregnancy. I’ve been able to breastfeed exclusively and my daughter and I have this incredible bond that I didn’t know was possible and I didn’t know how much I needed this experience. It’s been so healing. Your support really saved and revitalized me. You taught me I can trust myself and you gave me the skills I needed to achieve the goals I wanted with this baby. I am so grateful to you.
My whole experience has been very transformative. You encouraged and supported me as I did a lot of work on myself and you helped me learn to listen and trust myself. I just wanted to thank you (my husband too). You are such an amazing gift to this world and to all the families that you work with.”
Sincerely,
B.P.