Patience

Another sweet picture of dear Ellie :)

I'm starting off 2007 with a list of blog topics that I want to tackle. For some reason getting more 'in depth' in my writing has been a difficult task lately...don't ask me why.

A recurring theme that has been coming to the surface so often in the last 2 days is something I'm hoping to work at this year: being patient...and trusting in God for everything. I have always been a worrier, and I have never been a patient person. I'm the person who prays that God will develop patience in me...and to HURRY UP with it!! :) My doula business teaches me patience to the max because it is unpredictable and it takes TIME. The first challenge is actually getting into labour. For my client who is now 9 days overdue I know that this is a hugely difficult thing. I can truly understand the 'induction seduction' because I remember being at that point when I felt I couldn't wait another day for my babies to be born. I believe that birth stretches a woman more than any other event in her life (literally and metaphorically :) I have had clients who have episode after episode of pre-labour or 'false labour'. I had a bout of it with Izzy and it was a tough thing. To think you're going to be holding a baby in your arms just to have everything stop and to go home empty-handed. I remember feeling a sense of loss after having 10 hours of labour with Izzy (and progressing to 3-4 cm) when everything stopped and I asked to go home. It was strange. I cannot imagine how women deal with the loss of a baby, or a stillborn baby. It would be so SO difficult.

Then, when I finally do get the page that a client is in labour...the waiting continues, and I'm not sure if it gets easier, it just changes. As labour proceeds at it's natural pace, everyone seems to want it to go quickly. It's hard to wait and wait for hours with a woman who can't seem to progress past a certain point in her labour. I once had a client who was in transition for almost 3 hours. My heart broke for her in her frustration and her yearning to push her baby out that just didn't seem to want to come. I remember with Obi I had a lip of cervix that just would NOT disappear. I went from 9 1/2 cm down to 8 cm when I pushed too early and it swelled. So for 45 minutes I was on hands and knees, bum in the air, head on the bed trying to get him back inside and off my cervix so the swelling could go down. That was the longest 45 minutes of my life. Meanwhile my midwife was across the hall delivering an old order mennonite lady's 11th baby. When I heard that baby cry I lost it. That was when I vowed to never again birth without a doula, being left without my midwife at the roughest spot in my labour was brutal.

Wait, wait, wait. That's what birth is all about isn't it? We wait to get pregnant, we wait 9 months (some even more), we wait out the birth process, all looking forward to that glorious moment when BIRTH happens. Miraculous! I'm pretty sure part of the reason God has me in this vocation is to work on my poorest virtue: patience :)

So, as I head into this New Year, with two women who could deliver at anytime, I resign myself to waiting with peace. To trusting that God will look after things...that the new little beings will come into the world at their designated time. After all, every day of their lives is already written out in the Book of Life right? I also pray for that same peace for my clients, I know that whatever I'm feeling it's 100 times more difficult for them. Maybe it helps them to know that I understand.

Melanie