Do You Doula?

The doula-yoga-teaching-massage-giving Guru met with me and my husband today to discuss possible doula services for delivery. I am surprised that Guru has showed up in so many posts, but I find her sort of fascinating. Maybe it is because I can be a little cynical and conventional and find myself wanting to be really sarcastic when she talks about my "journey" and bringing my baby into the world with "love and beauty." This makes her challenging and therefore interesting to me. I admit that she has been quite lovely for me throughout my pregnancy. I feel very connected to her, and I truly feel like she saved my life when Peri was at the height of completely freaking me out. She saved me precisely with what I am all scoffing about--her Eastern medicine "trust your baby to know when to come into the world" self. The massage and the yoga are the only healing things I have done for my body this whole time, and investing in that during bed rest had become wonderful and necessary for me.

I did the research and there are a lot of good reasons to have a doula. There are A LOT of good reasons that make perfect sense (no time to get into them all). And Guru would do a great job. But here is my issue with her. She is very into her whole philosophy, which appears to involve sentiments along the lines of: hospitals=bad and unnatural and natural childbirth at home(no meds)=good and the way it should be. Now she knows this isn't a realistic way of providing services, so she talks a lot about how to make the hospital “like home” and insists she has no judgment about an epidural and even says there are sometimes that she advocates for c-sections. The problem is that I don’t believe her. I think no matter what she says she has a natural childbirth agenda and would cluck with approval if I committed to that. I don't want to feel judged when I ask for the epidural--which I am pretty sure is going to happen, and I know myself well enough that my worries over her agenda would stress me out.

Also, there is this whole "advocacy" thing. She feels that part of care in hospitals means doing delivery to make it easier on hospital staff (e.g. give an IV for fluid instead of helping the mom to drink)instead of what is best for mom and baby. Guru indicates she can be my advocate in these situations.

Since I work at the hospital where I am delivering, even having covered L&D as a social worker many times, I have to say that the professionals--especially the nurses—there are totally fantastic. I don't feel they're my adversaries. I delivered at this hospital already in the worst circumstances, and everyone was as nurturing as can be. I had my cerclage placed there, and I work there. Maybe if I wasn't so familiar with the place I would need Guru more. But my husband and I agree. He will do as the doula. She will do as the masseuse!

I can’t believe I just wrote a whole post that assumes I will have a normal birth:)