Lately

The kids and I take a self portrait...very flattering, I know :) Hey, I was having fun!



I feel like my life has been on hold for the last few weeks as once again I wait for a client to deliver. I also feel like I may possibly be in the wrong profession for the way I stress out when I have girls due. For one thing, I think at least 90 percent of my clients go overdue. With my last 2 clients I've also been waiting & thinking the birth would happen much sooner because they had early labour (and then end up going overdue). It's these births that I find are the hardest to wait for. When I'm going on to my third week of planning moment to moment childcare it starts to wear my down. I'm not sure how to get over this. I finally have a lady I can call during the day that is even willing to take my kids at 6:30 in the morning and get them to school, and still I stress. I have issues, I know.

I think about how much easier my job will be (at least in terms of waiting) when my children are old enough to be left alone if I have to suddenly leave for a birth. I think of what it will be like in another ten years when my kiddies are 17, 16 and 14 and I think maybe I'll be less of a nutcase by then as far as birth stress goes. I remember vividly how difficult it always was for me to await my own babies' arrivals and I was lucky enough to go early all 3 times (God was merciful!). I'm convinced that He uses my job to try to teach me to trust Him and to leave things in His hands...as you can see I'm not doing so well right now with that and it really frustrates me.

My biggest nightmare is that I will someday miss a birth. My own doula missed my first birth with Izzy because she had to work that day. My backup doula was great, but I was disappointed that my primary doula wasn't there. With my second I figured I wouldn't need a doula since I had a midwife...WRONG...ended up when I need her the most she was across the hall delivering another lady's baby while I felt abandoned. With Lyric's birth I was determined to be surrounded in support since i knew it would be my last. Well, as I've learned with every birth, it is not a predictable thing and my doula once again was unable to be with me. I was lucky that the midwives & attendants, my mom and even that Joel made it there (1/2 hour before she was born). It was disappointing. So I put lots and lots of pressure on myself and am terrified that I will miss a birth someday because I would hate for my clients to feel the way I felt when I didn't have the support I had hoped for. I don't blame my doula, it was mainly my fault for not realizing how far along I was when I sent her to her son's hockey practice...not thinking that her pager wouldn't work in a great big arena, I just couldn't reach her.

As I look back I'm proud of how strong I was to labour almost entirely on my own with Lyric. I was alone, but I don't recall being scared.

Everything happens for a reason. I know I've said this before, but a wise woman told me when I started my career that God puts us in the births we're meant to be at and takes us out of the ones we're not supposed to be at. I believe this with all my heart, and yet I guess I really don't because I think if I were to miss one I would feel that I had failed. That's the control freak in me.

I've been a doula for 5 1/2 years and obviously still have a lot of growing to do. At times I really wonder if this is where I should be, but then in the birth situation I feel nothing but confirmation that I'm exactly where I should be. So if I could just teach myself to trust and let go, I'd be an even better doula.

Working on that.

Mel